The My Lai
Massacre is, arguably, the most infamous occurrence of the Vietnam War, a
conflict that was unpopular in America to start off (and, certainly, I would
imagine in Vietnam, as well). On March
16, 1968, between three-hundred-and-forty-seven and five-hundred-and-four
civilians were killed in two hamlets of the Quang Ngai Province, including
infants, children, and women. The
massacre was set off, at least in part, by a bloodlust the soldiers of Charlie
Company felt due to recent, heavy casualties of their brothers in arms. These losses were perpetrated largely by
booby-traps set by the Viet Cong, engendering a hatred for the enemy and their
guerilla tactics. Using specious
reasoning and sketchy intelligence, the soldiers performed some of the most
inhuman acts possible, partly in the name of vengeance/payback. Despite protests from certain of the men and
reporting of the extent of the carnage to superior officers, the My Lai
Massacre was covered up for roughly a year before it was exposed to the
world. Of all the soldiers charged with
criminal offenses, only one was convicted, and he wound up serving about
three-and-a-half years under house arrest (that doesn’t feel balanced, now does
it?). At any rate, the massacre is the
jumping off point for Teddy Chiu’s (under the alias Irvin Johnson) Phantom Soldiers (aka Commando Phantom). In fact, a character is even named Barker
after Lieutenant Colonel Frank Barker, the officer in command of the My Lai
operation. Once this set up is done,
however, the film essentially becomes a Missing
in Action film, for better or worse.
A platoon of
silent, black-clad, gasmask-wearing soldiers march into a small Vietnamese village,
leveling the place and murdering everyone in sight with everything from bullets
to nerve gas. Investigating the titular troopers,
Lieutenant Mike Custer (Corwin Sperry) and his men are captured behind enemy lines. Meanwhile, back in the States, Mike’s brother
Dan (Max Thayer) is a Texas Ranger, busting up drug cartels on the border. He receives news of his brother’s
disappearance and decides to go to Nam incognito and get his brother back.
It’s a little
startling, though just a little, that American war films from the Seventies
through the Eighties that were set in Vietnam very often focused on going back
and winning the war. Barring the
righting of a perceived wrong in the minds of the more jingoistic, many of
these films also centered on rescuing those soldiers who were MIA and forgotten
about by all but their family members.
The two are not entirely mutually exclusive, both being seen as slights
against the young men and women who gave their lives (literally and
figuratively) in an “unwinnable” war.
Those who came back were not universally hailed like those who served in
World War Two, and this only compounded the sour resentment of the
veterans. Likewise, this sort of film
plays to the viewers who didn’t serve but still had strong feelings about
America’s defeat. Dan, then, is both a
veteran and a patriot. When not wearing
his Stetson, he wears baseball caps, one that’s camouflaged and a blazing white
number with the NFL logo on it. He’s an
all-American in every way. He dislikes
injustice, and he asserts at least twice that, “Nobody’s above the law” (I
cannot imagine from whence this bit of dialogue came). Dan has no real feelings about the rightness
or wrongness of the Vietnam War, except in that his brother is involved in
it. Once he gets in-country, Dan winds
up machine-gunning a slew of Viet Cong from a helicopter. They are, after all, the enemy. Yet, Dan’s first priority is his brother, so
this bit of violence can be looked upon as survival rather than as any sort of
soldierly duty.
Importantly,
the American soldiers in the film are clearly distinguished from the Phantom Soldiers. They do not fire on unarmed noncombatants. They play by the rules. They get irritated that the villains are
making them look bad (and, y’know, that they’re blatant murderers). Conversely, the Phantom Soldiers are
ruthless, sadistic, and quasi-superhuman.
In their first scene, the Phantoms are shot and beaten with gun butts,
but these things have no effect on them, shrugging them off like gnats
a-buzzing. Their uniforms are meant to
inspire fear and call back to several reference points. First, the gas masks are reminiscent of those
creepy ones we’ve all seen in photos of the soldiers in the trenches and the
civilians at home during both World Wars.
Two, the masks evoke images of death in their implacable brutality and
lifeless visages. Three, they recall
memories of Star Wars in the audience
with their similarity to Darth Vader and his stormtroopers, not only in the
skull-like faces but also in the Nazi-esque helmets. Their actions in the film, and the
explanation behind it all is a way for Americans to say, “See? We were the good guys here!” It’s the sort of exculpation of America and
some its soldiers that, I would suggest, they needed to have in order to deal
with their involvement in Vietnam and to vindicate themselves to those who
hated them for it. Naturally, it’s also a
power fantasy to reinforce that America is the best ever.
Phantom Soldiers excels in the action
department. The scenes of carnage are
exciting, well-shot and edited, and impactful.
They are also overlong (and, I’m sure, fans of action films will argue
that this is impossible) to the point of stopping the story dead in its
tracks. Some would say that’s just fine
and dandy in this sort of movie (and to some degree, it is), but for my money,
it also winds up becoming a vague blur and, ultimately, pretty boring. It’s simply too much of a good thing, which I
hate to say, because of the insane amount of talent involved in these sequences. The actual plot, then, just meanders along,
bopping from action beat to action beat, barely holding together just to fill the
spaces between explosions and gunfire.
Thayer does a solid job as the good ol’ boy maverick, but even what
charisma he musters isn’t quite enough to compel an audience along through the
whole of the film. He does blow things up
real good, though.
MVT:
The action.
Make or Break: The opening sequence is rock solid across the
board, despite the remainder of the film not quite paying off on this
potential.
Score:
6/10