Il coraggio della verità

Courage Under Fire is a movie that will stay with me for a while. Denzel Washington continues to be one of the finest actors today and proves it in this movie. The premise was interesting and was entertaining. I was disappointed with Meg Ryan's performance. I usually like her but she got annoying with her constant shouting. Yet that didn't keep the movie down. It was extremely dramatic and my two favorite scenes are the scene with Lou Diamond Phillips in the car and when it shows what really happened. A great film and terrific acting by Denzel Washington.

America's sweetheart as a helicopter pilot? Most critics say she does an excellent job, but that's not what makes this movie so momentous. Neither is it the excellent performance by Denzel Washington, who had been expected by many to win an Oscar nomination for it. Nor is it the over the top performance of Matt Damon, nor is it the excellent contributions by any of the others in the cast. It's the way the story is told: throughout the movie you see the same sequence, over and over again, and each time you understand what is happening just a little bit more, until at the very end the import of it all hits you like a locomotive. It's a unique brand of story telling, and eminently successful.

The story is a simple one. Washington is a Lt. Colonel responsible for some accidental deaths during a tank battle in the Gulf War. The experience leaves him feeling pretty lousy. He neglects his family and begins drinking. He's assigned to investigate the suitability of Meg Ryan as a posthumous recipient of the Medal of Honor. She was flying a medevac helicopter to a crash site when her aircraft was shot down by small arms fire and, apparently, she stayed behind voluntarily and ordered her crew to save themselves while she covered them. Washington interviews the crew members and gets different stories. In one story Ryan behaves heroically as described. In a second, she is a coward and collapses under fire. In yet a third, the truth emerges. Yeah, it's Rashomon, but not as original or subtle.

Still it's pretty good. And, Gott sei dank, it is not a story in which a woman proves herself as a good as a man, despite the fact that she is a member of the weaker sex. (What condescension.) Meg Ryan is a capable and courageous officer who happens to be a woman. Her sex is important to the politicians who are positively drooling over the prospect of awarding her the decoration, but isn't really important to the narrative.

The performances are better than I'd expected. Everyone, in fact, is quite good in their different ways. Matt Damon, in particular, gives a sensitive performance as a guilt-ridden medic, and looks the part, somewhat ascetic, his facial features askew with uncertainty. Meg Ryan doesn't have a chance to do more than shout orders with a Texas accent but she registers pain and determination well. Lou Diamond Phillips is perhaps the least articulated character, but that may be the fault of the role as written, which is fairly complex but a little obvious. Denzel Washington is the central figure. He's good as carrying that burden of guilt left over from his battlefield mistake but isn't too convincing as a drunk. In the end, he relieves himself of some of that torture by visiting the parents of one of the men he had killed and confessing his part in the incident. The first few times I saw this I kept thinking what some other actors would have done with this scene, but the last time I found his incarnate remorse rather moving.

There is one scene delicately shot, an uneasy exchange between the lying Damon and the perceptive Washington that's beautifully staged and acted, and another memorable first encounter between Washington and Phillips, in which both actors probe the edges of insubordination. Michael Dolan stands out in a featured bit part as a hospital orderly.

The battle scenes are well done, although a little confusing, as I'm sure they would have been at the time. Some generic conventions are adhered to. Four of our guys can slaughter dozens of them. The enemy runs headlong into a hail of bullets. But there are some interesting twists given to the situation. The Iraqis on the other side of the hill can be heard laughing at our boys (and our woman). And the ending is revisionist, but I won't go into it. Justice outs, let's say that.

It's a worthwhile watch for any number of reasons. Craftsmanlike if not poetic.

A DESERT STORM veteran, Lt Col Nat Serling (played by Denzel Washington), is assigned the task of recommending whether or not to award the first (posthumous) combat Medal of Honor to a woman, Capt Karen Walden (played by Meg Ryan). In investigating the inconsistent mission accounts of Walden's surviving crew, Serling constantly flashes back to his own searing DESERT STORM experience and the Army's subsequent attempts to whitewash the incident, resolving that his investigation will not suffer the same fate. As Serling tries to rectify the competing competing accounts it becomes clear that director Edward Zwick has crafted a contemporary "Rashomon," complete with reminders that the truth is always subjective and our accounts of it typically affected by self-interest.

This is one of those war movies where you feel how difficult it is to be a soldier in the middle of a war zone with bravery, cowardice, confusion, orders, and emotional turmoil taking it's toll on the human psyche while yours and your fellow soldiers' lives are perilously hanging in the balance during the first Gulf War. Showing why he is such a classy military actor, Colonel Denzel Washington encapsulates the emotional baggage of being participant as commander of a tank battalion that pulled the trigger in a "friendly-fire" scenario that continues to haunt him when he gets stateside. The PTSD and media backlash has pushed him to near-alcoholism as he is reassigned to basically rubber-stamp the posthumous Medal of Honor intended for the first female to receive the award for heroics in wartime. What transpires, however, is anything but a slam-dunk for the war-worn commander.

There are two stories running simultaneously throughout the picture. The first - Denzel as commander of the tank battalion - is dark and understandably confusing. This lends itself to the realism and confusion of actual warfare where warriors are expected to determine friend vs. enemy at night while looking through infrared scopes while under intense fire. It is a daunting, and sometimes overwhelming, task to command.

The other story is of a heroic helicopter crew, led by Major Meg Ryan as the pilot, who goes down while trying to protect another downed chopper crew. Over the course of the next 24 hours, the heroes come to terms with who they are under intense enemy fire. What starts out as a clear-cut "give her the medal because the President and our government needs a female hero" turns into a genuine mystery as to whether the pilot truly deserves it or not.

There is very little difficulty separating the two stories. What becomes more complicated is how Denzel's character must overcome his own demons in order to objectively give America's most important wartime medal to a deserving/undeserving member of the service. Whether it would be the first female to be awarded this prestigious medal is irrelevant. It is right vs. wrong with a very important military mystery blocking Denzel's path to the easy path of just giving it to her.

This is a clever "did she/didn't she" narrative with sides changing their story at nearly every turn. Since there are so few witnesses under intense enemy fire, it's basically one soldier's word vs. another's - and who is telling the truth when one of them is dead. It also is the story of redemption for two very classy, honorable soldiers who deserve more from their country - and their other brothers in arms. Denzel has done this character before, which also makes him a perfect fit for the tortured commander who wants to do the right thing against the powers that be. Meg Ryan was surprisingly excellent at portraying a character who, through the stories changing multiple times, must be both heroic, cowardly, and still maintain dignity and honor in the face of overwhelming odds. It's fairly inspirational stuff.

This may not be the best war movie ever made. However, I believe it is definitely worth watching as a night's entertainment. I would place it on the same, well-done, stereotype-shattering heroic level as "Men of Honor". Well cast, well acted, and well done. 8 out of 10.