A movie surprise and a pleasant one at that

So the other day on Netflix I watched We Were Soldiers, the Mel Gibson flick about the battle of the Ia Drang Valley.

I had seen bits and pieces of We were soldiers, but never the whole thing. I was not expecting much, frankly. Boy was I wrong.

Mel Gibson is great as Colonel Hal Moore, the heli-borne operations commander. He comes off as a gruf, scenery chewing, southerner determined to wield his battalion into an elite test case. He is also a family man and a man of god, who see's his troops as his extended family. I found Gibson's performance so strong I actually forgot he was Mel Gibson (the author's standard for measuring an actor's chops).

Speaking of which there are some excellent scenes with the officer's wives and their lives on a military base. Being stationed in Fort Benning, GA, in 1965, one northern women thinks the 'white's only' sign at the laundromat refers to clothes. As much as the fighting men are brothers, these women are sisters. There are some obvious but still heart-wrenching scenes.

Greg Kinnear plays a dare-devil chopper pilot and Barry Pepper a neophyte combat reporter who suddenly finds himself up to his eyeballs in death. Sam Elliot brings something knew to the hard-nosed sergeant.

The parts of We Were Soldiers I had seen prior to this viewing portrayed the actual battle. They seemed like they were filmed on a Southern California ranch, the terrain should look familiar to anyone who watched TV in the 70's and 80's. I'm pretty sure I saw the tree where Bo and Luke Duke take the General Lee for a spin around. Later today I'm going to flag down my Vietnamese neighbor and ask him about this. Maybe the Central Highlands are dry.  But over the long hall this doesn't matter. The combat sequences are well shot and intense, the most intense I have ever seen in fact. The author has written before about scope in a war movie; artillery barrages in the background, columns of men moving off in the distance, a jet making an attack run, We Were Soldiers certainly has scope.

Other reviewers have pointed out that We Were Soldiers is no jingoistic flick showing virtuous Americans up against a faceless enemy. Writer/director Randall Wallace goes to great lengths to humanize the North Vietnamese. The viewer gets to know them as well. This is always a nice touch in a movie.

The author has a personal cannon of war films he think are something more than just entertainment. He's adding We Were Soldiers to the list.