Overall this movie isn't bad. It has good performances from Dylan McDermott, Don Cheadle and others. The battle scenes have an authentic feel to them. I was initially excited to see Philip Glass composed the music but then disappointed to find it was hardly used and seemed out of place in the movie when it was. In terms of story, acting and technical merits the film is probably about a 6.0 out of 10.
The main reason I'm gigging it is it pushes, very hard, the right-wing LIE of the 'spitting hippy'. I was alive during that war and my older sister's friends were all in the peace movement. ALL of them had major empathy for the troops. Many of them had brothers, friends and cousins who had been forced to enlist. Their anger was directed at our government for sending those soldiers there, usually forced through the Draft, to fight and die. Their anger was directed at the Draft.
Not once during all the news coverage of the war was there ever a substantiated report of any peace protestor spitting on or otherwise disrespecting a U.S. soldier. This movie pushes an extreme LIE of protestors throwing bags of dog feces at returning troops. THAT NEVER HAPPENED. Google it. You can see for yourself. Nowhere on the internet is there any report, anywhere, of that ever happening.
If the filmmakers had just stayed with the story of the soldiers this movie would've been better. It's not in the company of Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket or Platoon but it is still a good movie that depicts what the troops were going through and the insanity of that war, very well. They just should've left out the lies. They did nothing to move the narrative forward, felt inauthentic as the actors were saying them and just took me and I'm guessing others out of the movie.
The main reason I'm gigging it is it pushes, very hard, the right-wing LIE of the 'spitting hippy'. I was alive during that war and my older sister's friends were all in the peace movement. ALL of them had major empathy for the troops. Many of them had brothers, friends and cousins who had been forced to enlist. Their anger was directed at our government for sending those soldiers there, usually forced through the Draft, to fight and die. Their anger was directed at the Draft.
Not once during all the news coverage of the war was there ever a substantiated report of any peace protestor spitting on or otherwise disrespecting a U.S. soldier. This movie pushes an extreme LIE of protestors throwing bags of dog feces at returning troops. THAT NEVER HAPPENED. Google it. You can see for yourself. Nowhere on the internet is there any report, anywhere, of that ever happening.
If the filmmakers had just stayed with the story of the soldiers this movie would've been better. It's not in the company of Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket or Platoon but it is still a good movie that depicts what the troops were going through and the insanity of that war, very well. They just should've left out the lies. They did nothing to move the narrative forward, felt inauthentic as the actors were saying them and just took me and I'm guessing others out of the movie.