A remarkable film (We Were Soldiers (DVD))

Member Name: GR-Design

Product:	We Were Soldiers (DVD)
Date:	30/09/02 (157 review reads)
Rating:

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….American soldiers in battle don’t fight for what some president says on the TV, they don’t fight for mom, apple pie, the American flag….

They fight for one another.

Lt. General Hal Moore.

The above is what this rather remarkable film is about. The above was also an extract from the DVD, from Lt General Hal Moore who led his troops and fought with them in the Vietnam battle. We see him in one of the extra DVD’s actually in Vietnam and now, in the present day talking to us about how close to reality this film was. There have been quite a few films portraying the Vietnam, Platoon is one good example, but from Lt General himself, he says that this is the most hard hitting, true to life film he has seen…..and that’s saying something.

For me this film was always going to be disappointing, I mean, come on, Mel Gibson as the front man in a supposedly hard hitting war film, it was never going to work, who was the person that cast Mel…give him the sack.

That’s what I thought anyway, but I had heard good things about the film so I decided to give it a go, how wrong could I be? This film was truly remarkable, excellent, the dogs knackers. How ever you want to describe it, this film was good.

THE FILM

The film was directed by Randall Wallace, responsible for the ‘God Bless America’ films out there, or some of them anyway. Under his belt he has films such as Braveheart and Pearl Harbor. If you have seen Pearl Harbour, you’ll notice how some of the scenes are pretty much the same in the way they are done, and of course, the love story is there in both films, which stands out like a sore thumb of a copy, but it’s not all bad, infact it’s good, even for those of you who didn’t like Pearl Harbor, and I know there are quite a few of you out there.

It is of course a true story, taken from the book ‘We were soldiers o
nce….and young’. I haven’t read the book and probably never will, but the film closely follows the book. The fact that it is a true story (amongst all the other historical war films out there) just makes the film even better. I’ve never wanted to be a person who can be entertained by war and the tragedies it holds for everyone involved, but I can’t help it, to me war films are among the most powerful out there, and this one is among the most powerful of war films.

The budget for the film was $75m. I was surprised, I thought the budget was going to be a lot bigger, it certainly looks that way when watching the film. I was also surprised by the amount it took in the box office. I thought it would have taken a lot more than it did, but like I have always said, the films that don’t have they hype are often the best and my theory proved right in this instance. $78m was taken in the US, and £2.08m over here. Scandalous I tell ya! This film deserves a lot more than that, and once word gets out about it, it will hopefully sell a great deal of copies, it certainly deserves to.


PLOT

The plot revolves around Lt Colonel Hal Moore (Mel Gibson). The leader of a platoon in the Vietnam war. Hal has a family, as do many of the other troops, he has to leave his family behind to go and defend his nation. A hard task for anybody, and in this film we really are shown the effects war has on those at home, the wives and children of the people out there fighting. Were not just shown the bloody action, we shown love and companionships in the film.

The film revolves around true love for your fellow troops. For instance, we are taken deeper into a relationship between Hal and Jack Gheogeghan (Chris Klein of American Pie fame). He is soon to be a proud father to his baby, but is fighting the battle under Hal’s platoon. We watch them say prayers together and pray for their own safety and the safety of their wiv
es and children. Theres a special bond which grows here, only to be broken by brutal murder, but it really does get to you and that is what this film about. Like it say’s at the top of this opinion, soldiers on the battlefield fight for each other, not for their country. They fight to stay alive, the country becomes their second reason amongst the many.

We are also taken back to the platoons home, where all the wives live together on a sort of estate, and are all hoping with each other. They become friends, afterall, they are all in the same boat as each other. They all love their husbands, again we are shown this, so it becomes extremely difficult when those same people have to hand out the telegrams to each other, informing them of their husbands death on the battlefield.

We are shown emotions all over the place and when and if this film grabs you, then it really does grab you and won’t let go until the end credits are up and rolling. The thing that separates this movie from other war movies, namely Pearl Harbour is the lack of politics and I mean the president declaring war on another nation. Were not involved with the US masses, the president or anything else, we already know all that, or we should do, were just thrown into the brutal action pure and simple, and when the actions over, so is the film.

SPECIAL EFFECTS

For those who love special effects, they are in just about every scene in this film, which is why I was surprised at the budget. There was nothing I could spot in the film that looked to have been done badly. Every explosion was spot on, just how it was supposed to be.

Of course, with a war film your going to get death and a lot of blood and gore. This film doesn’t hold back and you are going to be shown some pretty graphic scenes involving injuries to many different people, Chinese and American. One scene stands out in my mind as the most gruesome scene when a man, who we were introduc
ed to earlier in the film is burnt extremely badly, half his face is gone, and body, but he’s still alive. Were shown his body and his screams for about a minute in all, which could be quite hard to take for some of you out there, especially those who didn’t like ‘the’ chair scene in The Green Mile. It’s all special effects though, and it’s all done very well. Like I say, nothing is compromised on, everything look real, from explosions to wounds, and you see many.

ACTING

I was wrong about Mel Gibson. He was excellent in the film, proving that not only can he do comedy in ‘What Women Want’ but he can also do serious acting in the line of battle in We Were Soldiers. He has a lot of various roles in the film, ranging from dad, husband, Lt. General and just another troop of the battlefield gunning down his enemies. His acting to me has always been good, but I could never see him in a war film for some reason. I’ll give it to him though, he pulled it off, and gave the viewer just about every emotion they needed to see. To make the film what it is.

There was also the surprise appearance of Chris Kline, who up until this film had only been famous for me for the American Pie films. He was always the quiet sort of guy with the voice that makes you want to hit him. His voice is still the same in this film, but his acting is different in a way. Ok, so he’s still that bloke who portrays that he takes everything to heart, he just wasn’t out of shape in this film and did what the screenplay wanted him to do. He didn’t have a huge part in the film, but he did play it well.

Amongst others there was Barry Pepper who has had a role in other war movies, namely Saving Private Ryan, which he had a big part in. He looks the part for war movies, I don’t know what it is about him really, but the people behind the movie obviously saw his talents in Saving Private Ryan and hired
him for We Were Soldiers. I reckon he will be in other war movies too, just being himself he looks the part.

OVERALL

This film seem to have a huge effect on you. I’m not promising that for everyone, afterall, Blair Witch had a huge impact on me, others just shrugged it off as a comedy. For me though, this film was up against the best, such as platoon and really did give me a good insight into the war of Vietnam. It was a bit like a documentary in that way and It really does hit you. Ok I didn’t have tears in my eyes, but that’s not what this film is looking for.

It has a 15 certificate slapped on the front of the box, a surprise really for the amount of blood and gore it has in the film. Swearing is also involved, maybe the BBFC is just going soft, but it seems stupid to me for this film to be certified 15 and say Usual Suspects to be 18! It runs for just over a couple of hours, so it’s also not ridiculously long such as Pearl Harbor.

A film which will really get to you, or it should anyway, remember, those actors might have lived on after they were shot and their scene was over, but the real troops out there didn’t and this film is dedicated to their lives, it even has a remembrance feature in the credits.

A damn good film to be entertained and educated by, and what’s more, the DVD has a really nice box to it! 10/10 from me.

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