Hey folks, Harry here with another look at WE WERE SOLDIERS which screened last Wednesday in Thousand Oaks... This time a so-so review, but you must consider that this is for a Summer 2002 film... a film that was screening so incredibly early in the process that there could be tons of work left to be done. Tightening, a few reshoots here and there, effects work, the additon of score. Imagine watching APOCALYPSE NOW before Francis put in the Kill Da Wabbit music... This is a powerful script according to Moriarty, it just might need a little more work to be fully translated to the screen. Here ya go with Mr Deckard...
Hey Harry-
I attended the screening in Thousand Oaks, CA on Wednesday night of 'We Were Soldiers', alongside my long-time friend who has been affectionately known in these parts as 'Frosty Skywalker'.
I read the review that was posted on your site, and was quite surprised. It certainly didn't seem like its writer and I were watching the same film. Now, I should preface my remarks by letting you know how much I enjoy good war films. 'Apocalypse Now', 'Full Metal Jacket', 'Platoon', 'The Deer Hunter' and others have used the horrors of war to show the ultimate in man's humanity and inhumanity to man. They've used the full breadth of visual storytelling tools to give those of us who will never enter such conditions a glimpse into what these hells are like. And when they are made especially well, they force us to discuss and examine why war happens at all.
'We Were Soliders', however, accomplishes none of this. It's competently made. The action scenes are well directed, the actors do their job just fine. But WWS doesn't offer anything new. It's a standard, by-the-numbers war movie, with all the usual cliches. I couldn't help but think that the appeal to greenlight this film, other than getting Mel Gibson to play the lead (who does the great work that he always does), is that it's the about a Vietnam battle with some type of new twist: it's the FIRST American Vietnam battle. But that concept doesn't resonate. We don't get a feel of the loss of innocence back home. We don't get the sense of the greater slaughter to come.
In fact, the film suffers from too much reflection from the 21st century. Gibson delivers a fine speech as he and his men prepare to fly overseas, but it goes so far that it feels that it was written in this time. I would imagine that a military leader in 1965 might focus on the racial and social differences of his men and tell them to set them aside, but not to the extent that Gibson's speech is written. Also, during the battle itself, the film cuts to the officers following the skirmish back in Saigon, making comments along the way. These cuts feel so awkward as each character has some type of prepared speech, that they just jar the viewer out of the battle. And the worst example is a sappy, silly montage of Barry Pepper taking photos that felt like a commercial for Hallmark-Goes-To-War.
As competently as the film is acted, it's casting seems quite off. Barry Pepper, Chris Klein, and Greg Kinnear? Frankly, they all seem far, far too pretty, for lack of a better term, to be at war. Filmmakers will always try to use attractive people to enhance the illusions they create, but there's something about war pictures that asks for casting of soldiers that isn't out of GQ. In fact, a moment that should provide a great sense of tension and frustration in Greg Kinnear's performance just looks rather silly when, even if he acts like a man who has just seen the true horror of slaughter, he sure as hell doesn't *look* like it.
Regardless of these shortcomings, this isn't a bad movie. It's just one that we've seen before. It has plenty of action, plenty of melodrama, and a sense of heroism and history. But it's only entertainment... there's no art here. Don't plan on seeing another of the type offilms mentioned at the start of this review.
Mr Deckard
