User Reviews

What the hell was this? As I live and breath an Italian Macaroni combat film made in the year of our lord 2009. The trash hound inside me should be leaping outside and bouncing up the walls. Pity that this Reb Brown spirited opera happens to be telling the story of the most infamous atrocity committed in the most infamous 'war' of the last century.

Situated somewhere between the last films of Bruno Mattei and Uwe Boll's Tunnel Rats, Massacre at My Lai Four is at times a comically over dramatised depiction of the events that led to the aforementioned village massacre. The acting (unless you're well versed in the Italian genre cinema school of acting) is jaw dropping in it's cartoonish quality.

These were real people, killing and dying, and in true Italian tradition, everyone and everything is reduced good and evil and all the sadism in-between. It is near impossible to take any of this seriously and considering the source material, the film is borderline ghoulish because of that. Your limit may vary on the ironic entertainment value of this film's poor taste, but it definitely is there and it lays itself open to ridicule.

Also, in the Italian tradition, Massacre at My Lai Four actually looks like it had an alleged $2,000,000 budget and then some. Some close ups and tracking shots are legit on a studio level and overall the cinematography is top notch. Then they had to go and implement some 1997 CGI into the proceedings and drag it all down back to the bargain bin. So close, yet so far.

How can I summarise this trash? It has to be seen to be believed. No matter how authentic the screenplay attempted to be, the execution is so tone death, it comes off as nothing more than exploitation. The bad feels kind at that. Some of the imagery is really dark, and the film did not earn it. This was crap.

As many may be aware, the massacre at the Son My hamlets of My Lai and My Khe in early 1968 by elements of the 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, is the most well-known of several massacres of Vietnamese civilians carried out by US forces during the Vietnam war.

The incident itself was largely a legacy of the draft for Vietnam and the one year 'tour of duty' policy, which bled away experienced career soldiers from the fight, resulting in the drafting and training of poor quality officers to fill the gaps; men who were often completely unsuitable for command. These men were then told that 'the body count' was their yardstick of success, setting the stage for indiscriminate killing of civilians to become widespread when soldiers were out on patrol under such leadership. Such a culture meant that the My Lai massacre might never come to light at all had it not been for the brave actions of a reconnaissance helicopter crew who, upon witnessing the carnage taking place, landed at the village and put a stop to matters, and even then the military attempted to cover it up.

So, a deep subject then, quite relevant too given that there is a 'new Vietnam' in Afghanistan; thus one deserving of serious treatment if a drama is to be made about the matter, and one from which we might learn something too if it was done right. Films about war atrocities are certainly not easy to make and often not easy to watch either, but Schindler's List proves that it can be done. Which makes it particularly staggering to find that this movie is not so much a serious attempt to tell the tale with the kind of gravitas it warrants, but rather more like bad action movie to the extent that it is actually laughable. That in itself is a remarkable achievement; to make a film about such an horrendous event that - for all the wrong reasons - can actually make you laugh at its ineptitude. We should be crying whilst watching a movie about this subject material! Being interested in the Vietnam war, I had hoped this would be a film which might dare to examine the motivations and singular scapegoating of William Calley. To put the spotlight of justice on his superior officers in perpetrating such a terrible deed, to question the cover ups and policies which led to such an appalling turn of events, and to take a really good long look at the morality of soldiers in combat when they are pressured to deliver a body count. But nooo - from the cheap, nasty backdrop of frankly inept CGI UH-1D helicopters, to the woefully poor acting and casting, plus a terrible script, cookie-cutter soundtrack, poor storytelling and editing that is all over the place, this film is like a masterclass on how not to make a movie and - criminally - an opportunity missed to make something that could have been a genuinely worthy piece of self-examinatory film-making with regard to military policies.

Some of the close up camera work and lighting is okay to be fair, but then the 'actors' open their wooden mouths and attempt some of the atrociously bad dialogue and we're firmly brought back to FNG film-making territory once more. Couple this with the fact that several Vietnamese villager characters randomly switch between speaking subtitled Vietnamese and English for no readily discernible reason and the bewilderment continues. The result is that if you haven't stopped your DVD player and decided the DVD of this movie would serve you better as a drinks coaster, then you actually can't wait for the soldiers to get on with slaughtering the rotten actors playing the villagers just so the sound of frag grenades and gunfire will drown out the risible dialogue and offer a welcome smoke screen to mask am-dram standard 'acting'.

This isn't just the worst movie about the Vietnam war, it's the worst movie of all time. Moreover it's an insult to the victims of the real event. Avoid this DVD at all costs, that is unless you need a drinks coaster.

It is difficult to really place your finger on what went wrong with this movie. Many of the actors seem to have been chosen because they have an Asian face but can speak English with an American accent. The problem is, they can't act. The lead actress is in fact Fillipino which explains her terrible Vietnamese when she seems to have been forced to speak it. Either stick with English, or use real Vietnamese Actors who CAN act and subtitle it.

The dialogue is atrocious. One scene has a black actor telling people repeatedly that they are 'Bustin' his balls'. They should have had Tony Soprano playing that role. The hysterical shrieking and looped, "Oh my God!!!! Somebody help me!!!! Ah, my leg!!!!!" made me want to stick mute on for a while or reach for a gun and shoot the guy myself. I was relieved when a mine sorted out his agony. The rest of the soldiers are all caricatures of other films. You know, the virgin guy with the big black specs, the red-neck with his ammo belts and cigar, the wise black sergeant shouted down by the white man. Oh dear.

The CGI just sucks. Really sucks. What did they blow the budget on that meant they couldn't hire a few Huey Cobras for a few days?

I was hoping for a solid portrayal of the problems the rural Vietnamese faced when confronted on one day to join the VC and the next day to befriend the Republican forces. My Lai was portrayed as some idyllic village in a 'land that time forgot' kind of way. The people portrayed as simpletons completely devoid of any knowledge of what to do when confronted by soldiers. Anyone would think that Vietnam hadn't faced decades of war prior to this and that the last thing people would do was to run when confronted with soldiers. You don't need to be an expert on Vietnamese history to know this. Read a few autobiographies.

In short, give this movie a miss. It's even worse than 'When Heaven and Earth Changed Places"

And those are the good points! Paolo Bertola has allegedly spent 2 million Euro on this piece of epic fail and has nothing to show for it.

I have previously written (ad nauseum, I guess) how offensive I find it when they can't even get uniforms right. Well, these jibronis (sp?) can't even tell which service they are in, calling themselves Marines. They are in green fatigues with some hand-made unit patch (often on the wrong shoulder!). These do not even begin to approximate the patch that 2LT William Calley wore. Further, look at the officer's ranks. They are at least 3x the normal size and were obviously hand-made. They spent all that money and can't even get the uniforms right? What special effects? The smoke was CGI for god's sake! There were even CGI helicopters! There were several good explosions and some good blood and carnage, however, military protocol and procedure for a combat zone was not followed. Further, people do not scream for hours and hours, or grab hold of a rifle sling to be pulled to safety when both of their legs have been blown off. They bleed out. They die. I've seen combat and I've paid the Price of the Eagle. It's one of the most bone-jarring and horrifying experiences I have ever had in my life and I do not sleep well from it.

Damnit, if you're going to make a movie about Vietnam or any war, at least hire some people who have been there and can tell you what it was like and how it should be represented. Spend some money on quality props and actors.

What is is about Italian cinema that they always manage to screw up when they try to make a movie about Vietnam? The same thing goes for the latest zombie trash, Eaters, which was also an Italian job. It's unrealistic, full of impossible situations and innuendo unique to the Italian mind. Some things should just be kept within a country's borders. This film is one of them.

It is my belief that this film was made and released around the time of the anniversary of the My Lai massacre solely to capitalize on the human misery of the situation. It was not factual and does not represent anyone who was on the battlefield that day in any accurate form.