Although not that much original(see Boorman's "hell in the pacific"),this was an interesting subject,this meeting between an American soldier and a Vietnamese.But their dialog hardly exceeds ten minutes (all scenes put together that is):besides they are triteness itself.Besides,it's hard to swallow the fact that everybody speaks English,even the Vietnamese between them.The seventeen years old Ho speaks fluent English himself ,that's great comfort for his prisoner Beau Bridges.This good actor is totally wasted in this bomb.
The screenplay is completely incoherent,featuring characters who do not help at all:the propagandist woman (yes the land will go back to the people)and her French(!) bodyguard ,a legionnaire played by French pop star Johnny Hallyday-who quotes Renaissance King François Premier no less:" tout est perdu fors l'honneur"(all is lost except for honor)". Why did he land up here ? Simply because his ex-wife's husband,Tony Scotti is the producer of the movie.
In the end ,Bridges discovers that ,behind or in front of a gun,there's a man.(sic)