"Hamburger", it conjures delicious images of meat patties, cheese and burger buns, McDonalds. But, like so many other words in the English language, it also can be used to describe something far less...um...savoury. Thankfully I've never witnessed it, but apparently when a man has been gunned down point blank by a 50-caliber machine gun, he somewhat resembles hamburger meat. Nice image huh? Imagine seeing that over and over again for ten straight days, to your FRIENDS, and you have a GI's experience taking Hill 937 in May, 1969.
In a remarkably simple story, we follow a group (a platoon) of American GI's as they embark on a mission to take a hill someone pointed to on a map. Don't be put off by the simple story. It's a well-written, acted and deeply moving one you will not soon forget.
John Irvin's direction is bold - he doesn't let us ignore the bloodshed: he lingers on the faces of the dead, making sure we see, making sure we recognise the man whose life has just ended so suddenly.
We crawl through the mud and blood, we are assaulted by the sounds of the dying, and the thunder of war. We don't just see it, we are not just shown, we are pulled down into the mud with the grunts.
We feel pain as a medic cries over a headless corpse, some anonymous GI killed in an artillery attack. He ponders the headless man, thinking aloud as he cries, "I don't know who you are..." We experience the sudden-ness of death as a man, wounded, remarks to a comrade: "See you at home..." and then quietly dies.
We witness the horror of a "friendly-fire incident", proving that in amongst the blood and the mud and the filth, it is difficult to tell the difference between a friend and an enemy.
There is no end-of-movie posturing on the futility of war. We are left almost as numb as the soldiers who look back down the hill they just came through hell to capture. We are never removed from this battlefield, and thus it remains in the mind for hours after the movie ends. The anonymous voice of the HQ radio operator trying to raise the platoon over the radio, and his calls going unanswered (the radio operator is long dead), is a haunting and chilling final moment in the film. There is no need for preaching, the images of violence in this film say it louder than any words ever could: war makes beasts of us all.
This is such a brutal, frank and unapologetic anti-war film that I just had to review it and help keep its rating up, because it deserves to be alongside Platoon in the "anti-war" canon of Vietnam movies. It's basically saying in the first 40 minutes here you go, here's a bunch of young, likable guys for you to meet.
Now, in the last 40 minutes, you get to watch most of them die.
And die horribly, at that. Thus, it's not really a "pleasant" or "enjoyable" film, but it is an essential one for any war movie buff, and actually any movie buff in general, because it's a great example of less-is-more. It is also a timely reminder that it is not the grunts our anti-war sentiment (or anger) should be directed at, it is the men and women in suits sitting behind big desks in sterile government offices, pointing at all the "Hill 937s" on maps and saying "Mine."
In a remarkably simple story, we follow a group (a platoon) of American GI's as they embark on a mission to take a hill someone pointed to on a map. Don't be put off by the simple story. It's a well-written, acted and deeply moving one you will not soon forget.
John Irvin's direction is bold - he doesn't let us ignore the bloodshed: he lingers on the faces of the dead, making sure we see, making sure we recognise the man whose life has just ended so suddenly.
We crawl through the mud and blood, we are assaulted by the sounds of the dying, and the thunder of war. We don't just see it, we are not just shown, we are pulled down into the mud with the grunts.
We feel pain as a medic cries over a headless corpse, some anonymous GI killed in an artillery attack. He ponders the headless man, thinking aloud as he cries, "I don't know who you are..." We experience the sudden-ness of death as a man, wounded, remarks to a comrade: "See you at home..." and then quietly dies.
We witness the horror of a "friendly-fire incident", proving that in amongst the blood and the mud and the filth, it is difficult to tell the difference between a friend and an enemy.
There is no end-of-movie posturing on the futility of war. We are left almost as numb as the soldiers who look back down the hill they just came through hell to capture. We are never removed from this battlefield, and thus it remains in the mind for hours after the movie ends. The anonymous voice of the HQ radio operator trying to raise the platoon over the radio, and his calls going unanswered (the radio operator is long dead), is a haunting and chilling final moment in the film. There is no need for preaching, the images of violence in this film say it louder than any words ever could: war makes beasts of us all.
This is such a brutal, frank and unapologetic anti-war film that I just had to review it and help keep its rating up, because it deserves to be alongside Platoon in the "anti-war" canon of Vietnam movies. It's basically saying in the first 40 minutes here you go, here's a bunch of young, likable guys for you to meet.
Now, in the last 40 minutes, you get to watch most of them die.
And die horribly, at that. Thus, it's not really a "pleasant" or "enjoyable" film, but it is an essential one for any war movie buff, and actually any movie buff in general, because it's a great example of less-is-more. It is also a timely reminder that it is not the grunts our anti-war sentiment (or anger) should be directed at, it is the men and women in suits sitting behind big desks in sterile government offices, pointing at all the "Hill 937s" on maps and saying "Mine."