We Were Soldiers - Fino all'ultimo uomo

Short review: I typically do not care for Vietnam War movies. Some, like Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket" are good. "Platoon" is alright, "Casualties of War" is okay... "Hamburger Hill" is blah, "Good morning Vietnam" too happy. The running theme is either firefights (which is good eye candy but poor storytelling) or the futility of war.

"We Were Soldiers" has a different take. First, Mel Gibson plays a colonel with a degree, allowing him to not only think like a soldier but an academic. He understands military history and why strategies have or have not worked, and why Vietnam is as pointless as Korea was.

But what really stood out was the focus on the wives. The story is almost always about the boys becoming men in the battlefield. We rarely, if ever, see their parents or spouses. Here is an exception... the wives are their own squadron, bonding together and keeping strong. And that's the reality of war: people don't just die -- someone else has to feel that loss.

"We Were Soldiers" hit close to home because my dad and his friend Donald were in this very same battle. In 1965, my dad had just graduated from high school in Wichita, Kansas. He volunteered to enlist in the Army because there was practically nothing waiting for him there...

My dad was stationed with the 1st Cavalry. The "Valley of Death" was where he fought his first major battle and lived. I'll never forget the scenes in this movie because my dad didn't have to be alive and well today. After seeing this movie, there has not been one day where I wondered what would have happened to me if he didn't live to see it.

I am eighteen now, and my dad suggested that I see this and gain an idea on how gruesome the battle was and how he managed to live through it. I cried at the end, the same thing I did when I cried at the end of "Platoon", because I think of so many of those who may have been friends with my dad...who never lived to see the next day after that battle ended. I think of those who came back scarred deeply, not only physically, but emotionally and spiritually.

And I will continue to cry for them....cry as deeply as I can...

I for one am someone who was inspired to read the book "We were Soldiers Once and Young" after seeing this movie. WWS is about a distinct event that actually happened. SGM Plumley was a soldier's soldier, with five combat jumps in three wars and an astounding three combat infantry badges. LTC Moore was the sort of leader who could keep his head and lead his troops through the worst of battle. People who complain of clichés in this movie might as well complain that people in 18th century movies wear three-cornered hats.

To those looking for an anti-war message, it is there. When Moore goes to Division headquarters and gets his mission, he asks about projected enemy in his area of operations. The staff officer standing next to the general says "a manageable number." To this Moore responds with words to the effect of "which means you have no idea." It turns out that Moore's battalion gets dropped on top of a vastly larger enemy force (if I remember correctly, they get dropped right next to an NVA brigade). Ordinarily, it order to assure success in attack, you want to have three times the numbers of your enemy. In this case, the ratio was 4:1 going the other way. Then the battle is about how artillery and air support makes up the difference in numbers.

The obvious criticism here is that the command was fumbling around in the dark. At the end of the movie, the names of the 70+ men who died are prominently displayed on the screen. A military mind is not treasonous and will not disrespect its superiors, but it will let facts speak for themselves.

The next comment is only tangentially related to this movie. However, many voices here have taken the opportunity to vent their views on Vietnam, so I feel compelled to put things in a broader historical context.

There was a war that did not take place between 1945 and the fall of the Berlin wall. It would have been called WWIII. The Soviet Union and the US stood eye-to-eye for 40+ years, but did not blink. It was an ideological conflict with an evil that meant death to 50+ million people in communist countries in this century. It was conflict with a system that vastly constrained freedom. Fortunately for the world, the US finally prevailed. The struggle fought between communism and the west was fought in a variety of ways: in public relations, in sports, in propaganda, and in a series of proxy wars. In Korea, Greece, Vietnam, Afghanistan and a variety of smaller stages, East contested with West. To the people caught up in these local conflicts, these wars were absolute tragedies. However, in the grand scheme of things, these conflicts pale to insignificance when compared to the 500,000,000 who would have died in WWIII.

I live with a Vietnam Vet who served in the late 1960s with 1st Cav. Medivac. During service he earned two Purple Hearts, the Distinguished Flying Cross, and the Air Medal. Since WE WERE SOLDIERS concerns the 1st Cav., Randy wanted to see it. I reluctantly agreed; I am not partial to war films and I dislike Mel Gibson, and Randy is very hard on Vietnam War films. He dismisses PLATOON as a Hollywood 8x10 glossy; says APOCALYPSE NOW is an interesting movie that captures the paranoia, but all the technical details are wrong; and describes DEER HUNTER as excellent in its depiction of the strangeness of coming home but so full of plot holes that he can hardly endure it. And about one and all he says: "It wasn't like that."

He was silent through the film, and when we left the theatre I asked what he thought. He said, "They finally got it. That's what it was like. All the details are right. The actors were just like the men I knew. They looked like that and they talked like that. And the army wives too, they really were like that, at least every one I ever knew." The he was silent for a long time. At last he said, "You remember the scene where the guy tries to pick up a burn victim by the legs and all the skin slides off? Something like that happened to me once. It was at a helicopter crash. I went to pick him up and all the skin just slid right off. It looked just like that, too. I've never told any one about it." In most respects WE WERE SOLDIERS is a war movie plain and simple. There are several moments when the film relates the war to the politics and social movements that swirled about it, and the near destruction of the 1st. Cav.'s 7th Battalion at Ia Drang clearly arises from the top brass' foolish decision to send the 7th into an obvious ambush--but the film is not so much interested in what was going on at home or at the army's top as it is in what was actually occurring on the ground. And in this it is extremely meticulous, detailed, and often horrifically successful. Neither Randy nor I--nor any one in the theatre I could see--was bored by or dismissive of the film. It grabs you and it grabs you hard, and I can easily say that it is one of the finest war movies I have ever seen, far superior to the likes of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, which seems quite tame in comparison.

Perhaps the single most impressive thing about the film is that it never casts its characters in a heroic light; they are simply soldiers who have been sent to do a job, and they do it knowing the risks, and they do it well in spite of the odds. Mel Gibson, although I generally despise him as both an actor and a human being, is very, very good as commanding officer Hal Moore, and he is equaled by Sam Elliot, Greg Kinnear, Chris Klein, and every other actor on the battlefield. The supporting female cast, seen early in the film and in shorter scenes showing the home front as the battle rages, is also particularly fine, with Julie Moore able to convey in glance what most actresses could not communicate in five pages of dialogue. The script, direction, cinematography, and special effects are sharp, fast, and possess a "you are there" quality that is very powerful.

I myself had a criticism; there were points in the film when I found the use of a very modernistic, new-agey piece of music to be intrusive and out of place. And we both felt that a scene near the end of the movie, when a Vietnamese commander comments on the battle, to be improbable and faintly absurd. But these are nit-picky quibbles. WE WERE SOLDIERS is a damn fine movie. I'll give Randy, who served two tours of duty in Vietnam, the last word: "It may not be 'the' Vietnam movie. I don't think there could ever be 'the' Vietnam movie. But they pretty much get everything right. That's how it looked and sounded, and that's what I saw, and this is the best movie about Vietnam I've ever seen." Gary F. Taylor, aka GFT, Amazon Reviewer

There are many war movies, but finally there is a decent one about the Vietnam war in stead of World War II.

We were soldiers is a movie about the first American attack on the Vietnamese. A col. rides into battle with his man and they have to encouter several attacks from the enemy. It also tells the story from the wife of the col., who receives the telegrams of the dead soldiers.

There are moments of action which are needed in a war movie. The action-moments are good and the special effects look real. There are also moments of drama, so the movie does not have full action only, which is good to stay concentrated. But the drama does not hurt the movie, because there's not to many of it.

Overall it's a movie which keeps your focus to the last minute. It's not the best war movie ever, but you should certainly see it. Not only because of the very good acting of Mel Gibson.