Customer Reviews

We Were Soldiers

5 star:		(180)
4 star:		(52)
3 star:		(26)
2 star:		(17)
1 star:		(21)

 

 

This is a solidly made war film, which at the start seemed to be a highly conservative take on the Vietnam war.

Yet unlike other films, it does not demonise the North Vietnamese. It does not make them out to be saints either.

The Vietnamese have intelligent generals and their soldiers are brave. The Americans leadership is shown as little able to deal with Vietnam and it leads to useless carnage on the battlefield.

The film gives the impression that many hands went into wrting scenes and it jumps uneasily from liberal to conservative viewpoints. Some scenes are simply too heavy handed. At the end of it, I felt it was a good film with some sound ideas, but it just could not make up its mind which way it wanted to jump.

The one overwhelming weak point. Mel Gibson is simply dreadful in his role. Someone should have at least excised the scene of him crying because he could not die with his men. I suspect the actor wanted it in there to show his dramatic range.

It has some good things, but it is badly let down at times by some leaden writing.

I will admit right now, I am no fan of Mel. He is very talented as an actor and film maker; there is no doubt about that. But I think he's always had an extreme Christian-right leaning agenda that he managed to keep somewhat hidden for decades, and in this film, his veil of secrecy is clearly removed. Forget about the whys and morals of that particular war, he indicates. You get from Gibson that the real point is that war is bloody hell and we may as well win while we're at it, and we have plenty of practice with it. And to hell with all those peace loving naysayers. So in effect, his film throws our society back another 30 years. Stick with the real Vietnam films like MASH, Apocalypse Now, Deer Hunter, and Full Metal Jacket. Even Hamburger Hill made more sense than this piece of junk.

This film has to be by far the greatest war story I have ever come across so far. It not only shows that war is pure Hell but it is also the first Vietnam film ever made that shows the true honor and patriotism that our soldiers fought with. "We Were Soldiers" also gives to the veterans who fought in Vietnam the honor and recognition they should have received all along.

To any veterans who read this review I just want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart for the sacrifices you have made for our country. You did nothing to deserve the contempt and hate you recieved from the people of this country and you risked your lives anyway. I hold each of you in the highest respect for standing your ground and fighting for our freedom and the rights we enjoy today. And thank you to the makers of this film for giving us the opportunity to finally see the true nature of the American soldier.

It's about time this story was made into a movie. If you want a military film that gives you all the elements of great film making and is true, get this one! It is one of Gibson's best acting jobs. You will not be disappointed if your IQ equals your shoe size!

We Were Soldiers, Randall Wallace's 2002 feature film about the three-day Battle of the Ia Drang Valley in Vietnam, is perhaps the best Hollywood depiction of America's "lost crusade" in Indochina.

Based on Lt. Gen. Harold B. Moore and Joseph Galloway's non-fiction book We Were Soldiers Once....and Young, Wallace's film version is a realistic and respectful account of the first major battle between U.S. and North Vietnamese forces in November of 1965.

Starring Mel Gibson as Lt. Col. Hal Moore, We Were Soldiers begins with the Vietnamese destruction of France's Mobile Group 100 in 1954, the same year that Diem Bien Phu fell and French involvement in Vietnam ended, paving the way for America's long and doomed intervention. This opening scene is graphically violent yet serves to drive home its point - to show the determination of the Vietnamese to drive off any outside force, even if it means being ruthless.

We Were Soldiers, unlike Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now or Oliver Stone's Platoon, portrays its soldiers realistically and without the anti-military post-Vietnam War bitterness that permeates those two films. (To be fair, both Coppola and Stone's movies are well made, and in the case of Apocalypse Now, that film is not really about Vietnam per se but rather a Vietnamized adaptation of Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness.) Some viewers might even accuse Wallace (who wrote and directed) of having a right-wing revisionist slant, but in the featurette on the making of the movie, he points out that he was inspired to do We Were Soldiers when he read Hal Moore's comment that Hollywood has never gotten it right when it comes to making movies about the Vietnam War.

We Were Soldiers not only has respect and admiration for the U.S. soldiers, but it also depicts the bravery and sacrifice of the Vietnamese People's Army. True, most of the focus is on the American troops and, unusually for a Vietnam combat movie, their families. But I personally have not seen the North Vietnamese portrayed with this much respect in a movie - even though I know Oliver Stone's Heaven and Earth is a movie that deals with the Vietnamese.

Mel Gibson portrays Lt. Col. Moore with his usual earnestness, wit and warmth. He allows us to see the human side to this very intellectual and dedicated soldier. He is not only a very pensive officer who reads French history books about Vietnam and has various college degrees, but also a loving husband and father. His scenes with Madeline Stowe, who plays his wife Julie, exude affection and true chemistry. Also, the scene when Moore explains the concept of war to his youngest daughter is touching and tender. Rounding out the cast are Sam Elliott, Barry Pepper, Keri Russell, Greg Kinnear, Chris Klein, and American Pie's Jason Biggs.

The depiction of the battle at Landing Zone X-ray ranks among the best, if sometimes grueling, war scenes. The movie captures the horrible yet mesmerizing spectacle of battle, taking audiences from the roller-coaster exhilaration of nap of the earth helicopter rides to a three-day life-or-death struggle between two determined bands of fighting men.

Paramount's Widescreen Collection DVD is, as can be expected, a basic offering in comparison to other studios' releases. Admittedly, the root menu is flashier than previous DVDs from Paramount, and it does have director's commentary, two different Dolby sound settings, and the aforementioned making-of featurette.

"We Were Soldiers Once...and Young: Ia Drang : The Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam" was written by Harold Moore and Joseph Galloway. A bestseller when first published it is the story of the first significant engagement between American troops and the Viet Cong, which took place between October 23 and November 26, 1965. Moore was the commander of the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, and Galloway was the only reporter present throughout the 34 days of the battle. The Battle of Ia Drang in the central highlands of Vietnam is considered the first time and place where helicopter-based, air-mobile operations were used in combat. However the technological advancements of war become secondary to the story of over 400 U.S. soldiers surrounded by 2000 of the enemy. Heroism under relentless fire becomes the true story of the book and the main virtue of this 2002 film from director Randall Wallace ("The Man in the Iron Mask").

"We Were Soldiers" assumes that the audience does not know about the book on which the film is based; it toys with the audience several times with setting up Moore (Mel Gibson) to be killed. Moore knows history and cannot help but wondering if he is also leading the 7th calvary into a massacre just like Custer in 1876; however, Sgt. Major Basil Plumley (Sam Elliott) pointedly reminds Moore of that fact the colonel ain't Custer. The backbone of the story is Moore's promise to his men that he would be the first one on and the last one off the battlefield and not even orders from his superiors, who do not want to have an American lieutenant colonel killed during a massacre, are going to get him to break his word. But ultimately the entire purpose of this film is to provide a realistic portrait of ground combat during Vietnam and drive home the fact that these soldiers were not fighting and dying for their country but for each other. This particular firefight lasts three days and nights, 56 straight hours of nonstop battle, and time and time again you become convinced that none of these soldiers are going to get out of there alive.

The battle is juxtaposed with scenes of Moore's wife, Julie (Madeline Stowe), who is forced to deliver the telegrams announcing the death of their husbands to their widows because the Army was using taxi cabs drivers. Like a similar scene in "A League of Their Own," such scenes violate our scene of propriety, ingrained in countless other war movies from "The Fighting Sullivans" to "Saving Private Ryan," that the military has a moral imperative in sending officers out to deliver such shattering news in person. However, we end up getting the idea that these telegrams were being sent while the bodies of these men were still lying in body bags on the battlefield.

Hal Moore, who retired as a Lt. General, gave "We Were Soldiers" his stamp of approval as the first Hollywood film to get what fighting was like in Vietnam, which is good enough for me. Watching this film while American troops are again fighting and dying in a war on the other side of the globe makes it even more potent. The performances are uniformly good, with Barry Pepper as the reporter Galloway, who distinguishes himself both with his camera and an automatic rifle during the battle, Greg Kinnear as head chopper pilot Major Bruce Crandall, and Keri Russell as Barbara Geoghegan, the wife of a young 2nd Lt. who sees her husband go off to war right after she had given birth to their first child. My only major complaint about this film is that the score by Nick Glennie-Smith often overwhelms the scenes of battle with music that provides a discordant apotheosis. I can totally appreciate the idea of not providing heroic music, but what we have here goes too far in sanctifying the action. The blood and the guts being displayed by heroic actions and brutal deaths on screen do that without needing the music; just watch the "Broken Arrow" chapter for proof.

Before the final credits the film shows the names of the soldiers who died at L-Z X-Ray ; even more poignant is the fact that there names are inscribed on Panel 3 East of the Vietnam War Memorial, because there were so many panels that follow (70 in all inscribed with 58,000 names). Ultimately, "We Were Soldiers" avoids taking a political stance on the war beyond what is brought to the experience by the audience (the most political scene with Moore debriefed by McNamra & Westmoreland is one of those deleted). Moore's battlefield counterpart, Lt. Col. Nguyen Huu An (Don Duong) is presented as a dedicated, competent leader (the scenes in his underground command post also provide us our clearest understanding of what is actually happening on the battlefield). When Moore looks at the diary of a Vietcong soldier who almost killed him, he finds a picture of a woman, who to my eye anyway looks like Moore's own wife. The symmetry makes it perfectly clear that the troops on the other side were soldiers too.

This is one of the best war movies ever made. First of all, it is based on the true-life experiences of Lt. Colonel Hal Moore (of the brutal battle of La Drang in Vietnam) and it is based on his book "We Were Soldiers". Second, it is the only movie that shows how the war affects both the men in the battlefield and their wives and families back home. Third, it depicts the thought processes and the stories of the commanders and soldiers on both sides -- the U.S. and the Vietnamese armies. Fourth, the movie shows what really happens on the battlefield -- in war, men die for their comrades in arms and not so much for political or moral causes. The actors in the movie are outstanding: Mel Gibson as Hal Moore, Sam Elliot as the Sergeant-Major, and Madeline Stowe as Hal Moore's courageous wife. The director/writer is Randall Wallace, the same writer who wrote the script for "Braveheart." I loved this movie because not only does it offer great performances but the story and acting are all true-to-life. It is not a "Hollywood" war movie. I bet you'll enjoy this movie as much as I did. Highly recommended!

The title should be : How to survive when you are 400 inexperienced U.S. soldiers surrounded by 2000 North Vietnamese Army soldiers? The answer is simple : stay together, fight to death and hope that you will received air support and ammunitions because you are stuck in a very bad place. This movie shows the difficulties of a war for the soldeirs when you are merely in a hand to hand fight. After this movie, I am sure that you will not wish to go to war in a place like that. Excellent movie

I grew up during the Vietnam war. Watched it every night on the news. This movie brought it all back. I can remember going to St. Albans Vermont with my older sisters, during this time, and they were always disappointed that there weren't many young men around. Hell, they were all in Vietnam. I remember the little flags on the newly dug graves when we drove by the cemetary. This movie is the best on the Vietnam war that I have ever seen. The women receiving telegrams to let them know that their husbands, sons, brothers were killed in action is really heartrending. My husband didn't believe the that's what they did, just send a telegram. I highly recommend this movie for anyone who didn't live through it. It's a shame how the soldiers were treated when they got home, but that's another movie and Tom Cruise is in it.

the war scenes are outstanding, but the scenes with the women getting the cards were too sappy. dvd has good extras. the irish song was kind of strange at first, but it and the rest of the music was very good.