Mel Gibson plays Lt. Col. Hal Moore, a well-educated career
soldier who must train a new group of recruits for what will essentially be the United
States’ first real land battle in Vietnam. The film doesn’t deal too much with
what got the United States over there in the first place; it focuses on the lives of the
soldiers and their families that the first battle impacted.
After a gritty opening where some French soldiers are slaughtered on a battlefield
(this is what confused me), the first portion of We Were Soldiers focuses on the
introduction of the main characters and their military training. What I liked so much
about this film is that although it boasts a considerable amount of star power beyond
Gibson -- Madeline Stowe, Sam Elliot, Greg Kinnear, Chris Klein -- it marches them in one
by one and presents them all in such an honest and almost low-key way that at first it
feels a bit disconcerting. That’s good because its goal seems more focused on
creating meaningful characters than on over-hyping the drama.
Next, We Were Soldiers goes into battle, and, like other recent war films, it
gives us the soldiers’ view of the battlefield -- but this time a little different
again. It doesn’t have quite the tightness of Black Hawk Down where the
audience can tell who is where and what is what every inch of the way -- in fact, it gets
a little confusing at times. But it does do an admirable job of conveying the chaos of the
battlefield and, most surprisingly, gives a real face to the enemy, who are not simply
depicted as faceless adversaries, but rather soldiers with lives and families of their
own. There’s a nice touch at the end when the impact of what’s happened arrives
home, not only to the families in the U.S., but also in Vietnam.
I really like this film and wouldn’t be surprised to see Gibson get an Oscar nod
for his role here -- he’s more restrained than in Braveheart, but he’s
better. I also like the style of the film’s delivery, and that elevates it far above
the normal war movie genre. I thought it a bit of a cross between The Thin Red Line
and Saving Private Ryan -- sprawling and ambitious storytelling mixed with gritty
realism. We Were Soldiers gets a high recommendation and a **** rating.
After the first few minutes of We Were Soldiers, I feared that I may
have overlooked or missed something very early on because I felt as if I was getting lost.
After all, I’m a Canadian, not an American. I never learned the historical details of
some of the U.S.-fought battles, and this film seemed to drop me into a period of time I
knew nothing about. My fears were laid to rest a short while later. We Were Soldiers
simply does not spell everything out for you the way many Hollywood films do. It takes a
more subtle and interesting approach, and the message it conveys is as much about the
repercussions of war as it is about the details of the battles. It’s a story, I
think, most everyone can relate to.