Though I usually don't like to give credit to Mel Gibson for anything

[ET Awful]

because I really don't like him as a person, I must say that "We Were Soldiers Once" is a pretty damned good movie. I can't believe I missed this one when it came out. In fact, I hadn't even heard of it until a couple of months ago, and I just now borrowed the DVD from a guy I work with.

It's a hell of a good movie really. It seems to neither glorify nor denigrate war, but simply to tell an actual story of an actual battle without much embellishment.

Yeah, it's gory and bloody, but still a damned good movie so far (I'm about halfway through right now).

[Calanus]

1. It's good. The book is better

But it would take forever to film it faithfully.

Apart from possibly his politics, I quite like his films.

Especially Payback. That rocked.

[tjdee]

2. It's based on a real book/story--We Were Soldiers Once, and Young

or something like that.

Mel is capable of good work when he feels like it, and has good material. Haven't seen seen "We were Soldiers"...when I feel like a war flick I'll pick it up.

[ET Awful]

4. Yes, that was the title of the book. I read it years ago.

It's basically the first major battle of the Vietnam war, and the first real test of Air Cavalry units in combat.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. Gibson is quite a good actor

even though he's become a religious wacko with an increasingly disturbing penchant for making gratuitously violent movies. A couple of his early movies, "The Year of Living Dangerously" and "Gallipoli," are among my all-time favorite films. Also, he was really hot then.

[Ekirh]

3. Agreed...

It is a damn good film.. although aside from the battle part of the film itself, the part of the film that gets me is "SPOILER ALERT FOR THOSE WHO HAVEN"T SEEN IT:


when the wife takes it upon herself to deliver the death letters to the woman on base.(That the gov if I remember the movie correctly wasn't prepared to deliver).

[Minimus]

6. Great movie! Watch the deleted scenes if the DVD has them

there is one they cut because it seemed to political, where Mel's character was talking to higher ups, McNamara I think. The premise was that they won that battle with fewer men and therefore thought that meant it would be easy.

The line said is something like "We will fight until we drive them home" and Mel's character replied "They are home"

Anyway, the parallels with what is happening now are unreal.