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Date Posted: Tue, June 21 2005, 10:24:07
Author: wayne gregory
Author Host/IP: 209.240.205.60
Subject: Re: movies of VietNam
In reply to: Lisa Elliott 's message, "movies of VietNam" on Mon, June 20 2005, 19:49:15

Green Berets. Little relevance to the Nam War, and hyped in typical JW fashion but about the wrong war. He was doing a WWII film in Nam. These big guys in black pjs and the exceptionally graphic booby traps were laughable.
Apocalypse Now was a stereotyped movie with popularized Nam phrases for effect. They took phrases and pushed them to the limit. Well photographed movie, but little relevance to actuality on the ground for the foot soldier.

Hamburger Hill, the best picture about combat in Nam. You can splice this movie and only watch the second half, with jamming weapons, and new found brotherhood between races in combat. The give and take between grunts and especially between white and black soldiers is accurate. Civil Rights was a new beacon back home, and you had black guys from Detroit and Chicago fighting alongside rural boys from the South. Often times black soldiers giving orders as ncos. It worked for the most part.

We were Soldiers Once and Young. The book is better of course. Way tooo much combat in this one and ficticious with mortars bouncing around and no shrapnel wounds. The last man standing deal, a little much, while mowing down lines of NVA at point blank range. They were overall better marksman than we were. Splice it and watch the first half. The oohrah attitude going into war fades fast.
The love letter between an NVA soldier and his woman, this works on both sides of combat lines and gives pause.

In making a war movie, you gotta hold an audience so there has to be a plot line and graphics which are often fiction. Deer Hunter falls into this category with Russian Roulette. Born on the 4th is based on the true story of Ron Kovic, USMC, and later anti-war activist. Seems well done and real. Platoon was terrific with the diary and opening scene with the ambush while guys are falling asleep on watch. The movie loses it's way but the war within a war among us, out there, was accurate.

You didn't mention Coming Home. The first real attempt at exposing the conditions after war and attitudes. (and yes, starring Jane Fonda and Jon Voight) Laced with leftist propaganda as the movie went on, however much better and more accurate than Green Berets or Apocalypse Now.

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