Review of Casualties of War (1989) by Mike C — 11 Dec 2010

Based on an actual incident during the Vietnam War, Casualties Of War is the shocking true story of four men who raped and murdered a Vietnamese girl. The film stars Michael J. Fox as Pfc Eriksson, the new recruit in Vietnam who witnesses the crime.

Sean Penn stars as Sgt Meserve, the antagonist of the film and he gives one brutal performance here, I thought it was very chilling. Eriksson seeks to report the matter to his superiors, but none seem to care.

Meanwhile Meserve orders one of the men who participated in the rape to kill Eriksson, but he escapes. Eriksson soon talks about the incident to a superior who is also a priest. The military takes action against the men, and they get a harsh sentence.

This is a film that came out during the height of the Vietnam war film craze of the late 80's, but it seems to be forgotten. Casualties Of War is a good film, but it's definitely one of the weaker Vietnam War films to come out in this period.

The film is no Platoon or Full Metal Jacket. The film started off very promising, but it kind of ended flat. The film feels almost unfinished and I think the ending could have been better, sure the criminals get punished, but the filmmakers could have done something a bit more solid than the ending on the bus.

However the film aside from the ending has a two things going for it, Ennio Morricone's solid score and Brian Depalma's near flawless directing. Casualties Of War is a good war drama, but its the best out there, at times the script feels strained and it seems that they tried to make nearly every seen very overly sentimental, more than they needed to be.

But this is still a film worth watch, hard to watch, but good nonetheless. The biggest problem with the film is that it tries too hard to imitating the Vietnam War film greats by overdoing the drama. A good film, but not one of the best Vietnam War films.