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.