Review of We Were Soldiers (2002) by Ydnar4 — 08 Mar 2016

We Were Soldiers may embrace some of the war film clichés but it still has enough talent and pretty solid action to hold the attention of its audience. The cast is full of big names like Mel Gibson and Sam Elliot and some cast members that would only gain more recognition as their career continued like Jon Hamm and Clark Gregg.

I thought that the first 30 minutes of the film before they actually go to Vietnam Is great. I think it was a good way to build up the characters, but the story seems to get in a bit of rut once they do arrive but the ending is solid.

Mel Gibson is strong but not as strong as you would like. War films are his bread and butter and he had the power to elevate this film a bit more and he did not. There were a lot of times where the story cut from the battlefield to the home front but I thought that it worked pretty well in this case.

Barry Pepper gives one of the best performances of his career despite only being in the film for the second half. I actually though that he was the highlight and the movie seemed to get back on track once he joined the fight.

I think this is a movie this is more for fans of the war genre but certainly has enough redeeming qualities that I can recommend it.