We Were Soldiers
Length: 2 hours, 17 minutes
Studio: Paramount Pictures
Website: http://www.weweresoldiers.com/
Release Date: 2002-03-01
Cast: Mel Gibson, Barry Pepper, Greg Kinnear, Sam Elliott, Chris Klein
Director: Randall Wallace
Screenwriter: Randall Wallace
WorkNameSort: We Were Soldiers
Our Rating: 4.00
Director Randall Wallace’s self-penned adaptation of the Vietnam memoir “We Were Soldiers Once … and Young” is a tribute to that war’s foot soldiers that asks more politically volatile questions than it answers. Set in 1965, “Soldiers” focuses on Lt. Col. Hal Moore (Mel Gibson), leader of the 7th (Airborne) Cavalry. Gibson’s Moore is a soulful patriarch whose love for his wife and kids is only eclipsed by his bond with his men. His troops–including cocky pilot Maj. Bruce “Snakeshit” Crandall (Greg Kinnear) and idealistic Lt. Jack Geoghegan (Chris Klein)–helicopter into Ia Drang Valley. In no time flat, they’re trapped in a film-long conflagration that pits 400 mostly green U.S. troops against about 2,000 well-trained Viet Cong. The fighting is horrifically abrupt, close, and unsparing; Wallace’s lingering camera forces us to deal with the protracted agony of combat. The narrative also provides a sympathetic look at the unit’s VC counterparts, leaving the war itself as the only villain, along with maybe the U.S. Army and the government that sent it to fight. And it’s here that Wallace vacillates, refusing to place definitive blame or supply political motivation for the war. Still, the film’s commitment to honestly portraying the unspeakable helps to correct the confusion between an unjust war and the soldiers stuck fighting it.
This article appears in Feb 27 – Mar 5, 2002.