Hey folks, Harry here with a look at next year's Vietnam would-be could-be epic WE WERE SOLDIERS starring an amazing cast of talent, plus Mel Gibson, who with this and M Night's SIGNS is looking at a pretty strong year. The main problem that WE WERE SOLDIERS is going to have to overcome is to give us a new, poignant and powerful take on Vietnam. I mean, just yesterday I watched PLATOON for the first time in years and was just swept away again. I followed it up with BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY and FULL METAL JACKET. I'm waiting on my Director's cut of APOCALYPSE NOW (REDUX) to land in my hands and about two weeks ago I watched THE DEER HUNTER. Just about the only unique take on Vietnam would be a happy story about a soldier that went, always met the enemy in an organized and clear manner and left Nam unscathed with no scars physical or mental. BUT wait... John Wayne already made that film, so even that would be covered territory. Moriarty loved the script for WE WERE SOLDIERS ONCE AND YOUNG (when that was the title) but perhaps something was lost in the translation... or upon this viewer. It is a long ways till this movie hits screens next summer... Personally I look forward to it.
Actually, it's called We Were Soldiers. I keep mixing the title up with Once Were Warriors ...
So I had pretty high expectations, given the pedigree, and assumed, if nothing else, Mel's would be a fresh take on the Vietnam film. And, in truth, the intent is on the screen .... sort of.
There is that perspective from the vietnamese bunker; a young man keeping his own diary, the commanding officer plotting and scheming, earning the admiration of his men just as Mel does his own, and we often go into attack from the enemy's POV ... it does work to give us a more universal sense of young lives wasted in this pointless war.
But here's the rub. The battle scenes themselves become senseless. You start to hate seeing either side getting blown up. This simply does not work as intended. This is the movies folks ... if you can't root for the "good guys" guilt free, there better be one hell of a unique overall vision up there to underscore that dilemna for you; to make it resonate in a new, powerful way.
But this film surrounds this concept with the most cliched, roll-your-eyes, hallmark tv movie setup/conclusion, and character development I've seen in a war film.
Mel's "perfect family guy" scenes are stunningly corny, as are winky / weepy bonding scenes with the "handsome-with-young pretty pregnant wife" recruits including Chris Klein(!) as the focus Handsome Young American Who You Know Will Be Killed guy. There had to be at least three scenes where Mel, who can't sleep, has come downstairs and is sitting pensively in the foreground, and then wife (Madeline Stowe) appears behind him in partial shadow, concerned, loving him from a distance she knows will soon increase .... blech! Makes me yearn for the wild pre-battle wedding scene in The Deer Hunter. Sure it was a little long, but what dread it contained ... the guy at the bar just saying "fuck it" ...totally original, and then ..... bam! You're in the trenches with these guys - you are as unprepared as they were. Or the training "half" of Full Metal Jacket. More brutal than even the war scenes!!
This film builds so predictably, and takes so long to do it, that by the time they leave to go, you kind of want credits to roll with a written exposition of what happened, cause you're so freakin' bored!
There are some good ideas sprinkled throughout the film - letters to wives about their lost husbands being delivered by a lone hapless taxi driver, who then agrees to bring all letters to Stowe so that she may deliver them personally ... Barry Pepper's character, a war photographer who finds himself putting down his camera and joining in the gunplay (and is of course an excellent shot - I couldn't help wondering whether he was cast because people might subconsciously associate him w/ the cool bible quoting sniper he played in SPR ), but for me his character is way too interesting to come in as late as he does, and be developed as little as he is ... I think the entire film could've been from that photog's perspective! Way more rich and interesting than Mel's one-dimensional Mr. Perfect Hero ...
The battle scenes have their horrifying moments, to be sure, but big deal. How much of a challenge could that be for a filmaker? Any movie showing innocent young lives destroyed by battle is bound to be disturbing, if for no other reason than you know it really happened.
We Were Soldiers might meet with commercial success. Maybe there are those who will be far more affected than I was. Plus, this is obviously an early cut; maybe it'll tighten up and focus more in the coming months... but they'd have to reimagine the whole set up to win me over ... the whole setup and the denoument as well ... give it a total corn-ectomy....And I just don't know if that's possible. Oh well ....
Thanks so much Harry ; keep up the good wrk!
Jughead
