Release Date:
Friday, March 1, 2002
We understand that the war movie is the last refuge of the aging action hero, but is anyone else getting sick to death of them? After Saving Private Ryan and Black Hawk Down, onscreen battlefield realism has gotten as grisly as it can get. As they begin to lose their ability to shock, you have no choice but to begin focusing on the story and characters, which, in the case of We Were Soldiers, is the kiss of death.
This might seem a tad unpatriotic, but just because September 11 happened doesnt excuse writer/director Randall Wallace for creating the most cliché-ridden, shamelessly hackneyed war movie Hollywood has produced since Ronald Reagan was known as only an actor. It gets so bad, some of the dialogue scenes are more gruesome and cringe-inducing than the battle scenes. Watch out for the No Whites discussion held by the soldiers wives; it is quite possibly the most embarrassing scene in any movie ever (and weve seen Duets, mind you). You actually might want to cover your ears. The rest gets so bad, it feels like a parody of a war movie. Even in this day of New Patriotism, you cant have a dying soldier in close-up gaze into the camera and say with his dying breath, Im glad I could die for my country and expect to be taken seriously. And were not even talking about the black-and-white morality of WWII herethis movie takes place in Nam (but not so youd notice).
According to actual history, things were a lot messier than that. But the real shame is the loss of a good performance by Mel Gibson. (That is, despite the fact that he plays a comic book soldier who can stand still in the middle of a fire-fight and deliver speeches without so much as having to duck. We kept picturing him with an eye-patch and thinking hed be perfect in a movie based on Nick Fury and his Howling Commandos). Sam Elliot also manages well given the little bit he has to do, but its all wasted effort. The only thing this movie does right is kill Chris Klein fairly early. Even in the jungles of Vietnam, theres such a thing as a mercy killing.
This might seem a tad unpatriotic, but just because September 11 happened doesnt excuse writer/director Randall Wallace for creating the most cliché-ridden, shamelessly hackneyed war movie Hollywood has produced since Ronald Reagan was known as only an actor. It gets so bad, some of the dialogue scenes are more gruesome and cringe-inducing than the battle scenes. Watch out for the No Whites discussion held by the soldiers wives; it is quite possibly the most embarrassing scene in any movie ever (and weve seen Duets, mind you). You actually might want to cover your ears. The rest gets so bad, it feels like a parody of a war movie. Even in this day of New Patriotism, you cant have a dying soldier in close-up gaze into the camera and say with his dying breath, Im glad I could die for my country and expect to be taken seriously. And were not even talking about the black-and-white morality of WWII herethis movie takes place in Nam (but not so youd notice).
According to actual history, things were a lot messier than that. But the real shame is the loss of a good performance by Mel Gibson. (That is, despite the fact that he plays a comic book soldier who can stand still in the middle of a fire-fight and deliver speeches without so much as having to duck. We kept picturing him with an eye-patch and thinking hed be perfect in a movie based on Nick Fury and his Howling Commandos). Sam Elliot also manages well given the little bit he has to do, but its all wasted effort. The only thing this movie does right is kill Chris Klein fairly early. Even in the jungles of Vietnam, theres such a thing as a mercy killing.