Review of We Were Soldiers (2002) by Jan N — 19 Feb 2016

War films are a dime a dozen whether they're tackling World War 1, the extremely popular World War 2, the recent battles in the Middle East, or Vietnam, and this particular film focuses on the first major battle between the Americans and the Vietnamese in brutal detail as they were outnumbered 5:1 in the infamous battle of La Drang.

Written and directed by Randall Wallace (who also wrote Pearl Harbour and Braveheart), the film paints a highly realistic portrayal of the carnage of war; flipping back and forth between the soldiers fighting in 'Nam and their spouses at home receiving KIA notifications: it's very grim stuff.

Mel Gibson stars at Lt. Colonel Hal Moore whose jingoistic intentions to get the job done and protect his men is admirable and is exemplified perfectly when he tells his troops, "I will be the first to set foot on the field, and I will be the last to step off, and I will leave no one behind".

The rest of the cast is padded out with familiar faces such as: Greg Kinnear, Sam Elliot, Chris Klein, Keri Russell, Barry Pepper, Madeleine Stowe, etc. while also featuring some surprising appearances from later TV stars, Jon Hamm, Clark Gregg, Ryan Hurst, and Desmond Harrington.

In reality, it isn't hard to get big names to appear in war films, but it is still worth noting. As mentioned, the battle scenes are violent, in-your-face, and really hard to watch as you can clearly see how overwhelmed the American soldiers were and how desperate they become when their numbers swiftly drop.

There is a scene where a soldier is nearly burned to death by friendly fire and a fellow soldier attempts to carry him out and the skin on his legs literally peels off like ribs on the bone; some horrific imagery for sure.

From what I've heard, the facts aren't all the way there (what war film is), but if you enjoy these types of movies and can handle the violence, it's definitely one of the better films to tackle the conflict in Vietnam since, Platoon.