Reviews

So this reviewer's pro-life. This one's anti-socialized medicine. This one doesn't trust Bush. This one doesn't trust Democrats.

Hey, guys, how was THE MOVIE?! You know, the one that came out in 1971 and had nothing to do with anything you're talking about? My answer: It was okay. Exciting in parts, kinda cheesy in production values as most TV movies are. Nothing that will likely stick with you forever or bear repeat viewings, but kinda thrilling for 70-some minutes. Van Heflin and Edward Asner were good, and the rest of the cast is mostly 70s actors who stuck mostly to supporting roles and occasional TV movies because none of them really had that much star charisma to speak of. Worth a watch if you catch it on cable or in the dollar bin.

This is a wonderful episode from the series, and one of the truly rare instances where House doesn't always get his way. The main plot, regarding the pregnant woman, shows House at its dark best, and the advancement of that story shows House having to recognize his cynicism is not always appropriate. But the real treat is the Vogler storyline, which shows Vogler at his diabolical best. If House is truly Sherlock Holmes, then Vogler is unquestionably his Moriarty - the one nemesis who has truly gotten the best of House, and this is the episode where that happens. Their final confrontation is funny, nerve-wracking and surprising, as it should be. Also, to correct an earlier comment, the trashy woman with strange bruises who is having sex is NOT in this episode. She appeared in the previous episode, "Role Model."

The highlight of this episode is definitely House's speech at the end for the conference. The cat and mouse game between Vogler and House is fine, and it takes some interesting twists in this episode, but the patient's case is less than thrilling. Also, the development of House's relationship with Cameron is almost annoying here. (It gets more interesting later in the series.) However, to correct a comment made earlier: The overweight woman whom House thinks might be pregnant is NOT in this episode. That happened in the prior episode, "Heavy." House's clinic patient this episode is a very skinny woman whom House says HAS BEEN pregnant, although she denies having had sex in the last year. However, further symptoms suggest she is lying.

Hey, kids. Get out your war movies cliches checklists and count along with me. Let's see, we have the guy whose first line is his wife had a baby. He's gonna die, isn't he? Yup. And so's - in slo-mo - the guy carrying his wounded friend, right? Check. The cut aways to the women at home getting the news? The leader's "it should have been me" speech? The dying soldier whispering, "Tell my daddy I love him"? The enemy leader, after the battle, predicting the course of the rest of the war? Check, check, check, check. The soldier dying by throwing himself on a grenade? Oh, no, wait. NOBODY could call that one up. It's too much. There are CAVE PAINTINGS with that cliche. It's too... my God, they did that, too.

The biggest shame of "We Were Soldiers" is its waste of great performances. Mel Gibson doesn't turn in a career-best performance, but this is in his upper third. Greg Kinnear is almost unrecognizable in a complete departure from his earlier work. Sam Elliott and Barry Pepper are... well, Sam Elliott and Barry Pepper. It's just.... Man. When Pepper gives the "I came here to make the people in America understand" speech, Pepper's giving it his all, but I roll my eyes hard enough to sprain an optic muscle or two.

What's lacking is talent behind the camera. "Saving Private Ryan" is just as cliched, but Spielberg uses those cliches better than anyone before - one might hope, to end the need ever to repeat them. Writer-director Randall Wallace (who also wrote "Pearl Harbor" - and if that's not a giant candy-apple red warning flag, I don't know what is) doesn't seem to think so. And his delivery is painful. There are moments - like Pepper's photographic montage, or the scene at the end with the press corps that doesn't "get it," that are so cheesy as to almost become parody. The movie a comedy troupe might make if they wanted to send up horrible war movies. And it WOULD be funny, if it weren't so realistic. Just as World War II veterans spoke of "Pearl Harbor"'s realism, some Vietnam veterans have talked about the realism of this film's action. But the realism and the performances make the whole mess WORSE. They add earnestness to the tripe, and nothing's worse than humorless camp.

Somewhere between the brooding navel-gazing of "Full Metal Jacket" and "Apocalypse Now" (both of which I loved, although I'd never consider them "realistic" portrayals of Vietnam or any war) and the jingoistic propaganda of "The Green Berets" and "Rambo," (the latter of which I liked), there's a Vietnam movie to be made that shows soldiers of both sides as humans in an inhuman situation. This ain't it. And until someone has the guts and talent to pull off, say, an adaptation of Tim O'Brien's THE THINGS THEY CARRIED, we may not see such a film for a while.