Synopsis
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Denzel Washington plays a Gulf War veteran who gives accounts of his experiences. Most notably one incident where they are ambushed and one of their platoon, Raymond Shaw, single handedly takes on the enemy and saves most of them. Shaw's father was a failed politician.

Shaw is a candidate for Vice President and has been helped a lot by the Medal of Honour that he received for his courage in the war. He is being pushed very hard by his mother (Meryl Streep) who is very ruthless. He often resents her interference in his life and seems to have more morals.

Things get complicated when it turns out the surviving platoon members are having dreams about events that they cannot remember happening. What really did happen to them out there? Who’s behind it?

Special Features
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There is a commentary by director Jonathan Demme (of Silence of the Lambs fame) and Screenplay Co-Writer Daniel Pyne.

There is also a featurette that features Tina Sinatra (yes Frank's daughter, she is one of the producers), Jonathan Demme, Denzel Washington and Meryl Streep amongst others. It compares some scenes from the original movie. They even suggest that link between large corporations and politicians today. It is quite interesting. It runs for 14 minutes.

The last special feature is another featurette, it goes into the characters and the actors in the movie. It is also quite interesting, but does cover similar ground to the first featurette. It runs for 12 minutes.

What I Thought
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This is yet another remake, there are too many of late, although I didn't know this until I had seen it. The biggest draw for me was Denzel Washington, he is a fine actor. He certainly pulls off a fine performance as a man who is searching for answers and as appearing to slowly lose his sanity along the way. The main twist in the film appears about halfway through. It is fairly easy to piece together most of what has happened to the platoon and the reasons for
it.

The mood of the film is very dark, there is a definite atmosphere. The soundtrack is pretty standard fare for this kind of film. To conclude, I really enjoyed this movie. It's quite a long film but there was enough happening throughout to hold my attention for the duration, and there are enough surprises too.

I haven’t seen the original starring Frank Sinatra, so I can’t compare, although it’s certainly given me an interest to.

Main Cast List
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Denzel Washington - Ben Marco
Liev Schreiber - Raymond Shaw
Meryl Streep - Eleanor Shaw
Jon Voight - Senator Thomas Jordan

Directed By : Jonathan Demme
Running Time : 129 Minutes
Certificate : 15

Recommended.

Thanks for reading.