The Walking Dead

The Walking Dead is a recent Vietnam War movie that focuses on mainly 4 black soldiers and one white soldier in a couple of days of battle. The story has them being dropped off with another platoon to try and rescue some POW's. Soon they realize that it is just the four of them that are still alive. The movie gives you a flashback of each of the characters and why the joined the Army. The movie doesn't get anywhere near as powerful or good as Platoon or The Deer Hunter, but it still holds up as a solid war movie. Joe Morton (Speed, Apt Pupil) and comedian Eddie Griffin (Armageddon, TV's Malcolm and Eddie) give the only two performances of note. Morton gives a good performance as the leader of the group and Griffin surprised me with a strong performance as the loud-mouth with a heart.

I was looking at the free movies on demand and saw Joe Morton was in this, so I decided to watch it. I was really glad I did. The interactions between Joe and Eddie Griffin were great. I also loved the soundtrack; it reminded me of my youth. I have to disagree with anyone who thinks Blacks weren't disproportionately represented in Vietnam. Actually, all poor Americans were; unfortunately, inner cities happened to have a lot of poor minorities and little political clout. The movie did suffer a little with the generic stereotype VC, and the fighting seemed low budget, but the acting among the main characters was great. Worth seeing if you come across it.

It's 1972 Vietnam. A small group of United States Marines is sent on a mission behind enemy lines to rescue POWs. They come under fire even before their chopper lands and they end up stranded without help. The group is mostly black as each member flashbacks to their lives in America and their origin stories.

Black filmmaker Preston A. Whitmore II is struggling with a lower budget production and it looks like it. It's no better than a TV movie with ambitions. It tries with some action. The subject matter tries to be edgy. That's the best compliment I can give it. Everybody is trying. It's still not good enough.

It could have been much better, the movie is actually worth watching once just for the dialog of Eddie Griffin's character and Sgt. Barkley. The problem comes in the form of awkward acting from all the cast (except the aforementioned characters) and the very predictable nature of EVERYTHING you experience during the movie. The film feels rushed and underdeveloped and very average. As the movie moves along you become a bit more attached to the characters due to the flashbacks of life before being deployed to war and good character development but overall this is probably one of the worst war movies I've seen. I give it a 5 just for Eddie though, he is great in this flick.

(1994) The Walking Dead WAR

Not to be confused with the TV series that started in 2010 which involves zombies, this is strictly a 'war' movie made in 1994 from HBO written and directed by Preston A. Whitmore which focuses on five marines being stranded somewhere along the Vietnam jungle, using the saving mission operation as a backdrop to tell viewers how these specific five became marines in the first place. It includes a preacher, a thug, and a young man who was living in his mom's basement. Not one war story had anything to do with pride. I mean, what are the odds that all five of them had an "ulterior motive" for joining. The other thing I had a problem with, is that there are times, the fighting war scenes didn't look like how actual war scenes was supposed to look like, since it looked fake and stagey, and despite the good ending, it doesn't offer anything new viewers can't come up with themselves.