Roland Wandinger
Stunt Coordinator
- Joined
- Feb 13, 2000
- Messages
- 220
I have not seen this movie yet but it got very bad reviews in Europe. It got described with "Flag waving", "patriotic crap" and even "American propaganda"...things European have become very antipathetic to (me thinks)... what do you as Americans say?
Below is a review from an UK site:
I really should have known better. Recent years have produced some fine war movies, from The Thin Red Line and Saving Private Ryan (if you can cope with Spielberg) through to HBO's excellent mini-series Band of Brothers and last years Black Hawk Down - and I'd recommend that rather than wasting your time with We Were Soldiers you go pick
those up instead - that is unless you have a particular pandering for flag-waving, heavy-handed sentimentality, cliche ridden characters and hackneyed dialogue. Who'd a
thought that possible from the writer of Pearl Harbour?
Despite taking on the very first battle of the Vietnam conflict, We Were Soldiers somehow manages to steer clear of actually imparting any real information about the war;
if this were your introduction to Vietnam you'd be left wondering just why the Americans invaded, what they were doing there in the first place. Instead, it takes the "soldiers as heroes" approach, young men who exclaim "I'm glad I could die for my country" and "Tell my wife I love her" before breathing their final breath - if it weren't for the occasional visit to the Vietnamese base, to show that the enemy are simply soldiers too, it really would be an
entirely patriotic gung-ho affair.
Manipulative and overly reverent, We Were Soldiers quite frankly has nothing new to say, it simply brings a feel-good script and a decent set of special effects to a story
deserving of more complex and considered treatment.
Below is a review from an UK site:
I really should have known better. Recent years have produced some fine war movies, from The Thin Red Line and Saving Private Ryan (if you can cope with Spielberg) through to HBO's excellent mini-series Band of Brothers and last years Black Hawk Down - and I'd recommend that rather than wasting your time with We Were Soldiers you go pick
those up instead - that is unless you have a particular pandering for flag-waving, heavy-handed sentimentality, cliche ridden characters and hackneyed dialogue. Who'd a
thought that possible from the writer of Pearl Harbour?
Despite taking on the very first battle of the Vietnam conflict, We Were Soldiers somehow manages to steer clear of actually imparting any real information about the war;
if this were your introduction to Vietnam you'd be left wondering just why the Americans invaded, what they were doing there in the first place. Instead, it takes the "soldiers as heroes" approach, young men who exclaim "I'm glad I could die for my country" and "Tell my wife I love her" before breathing their final breath - if it weren't for the occasional visit to the Vietnamese base, to show that the enemy are simply soldiers too, it really would be an
entirely patriotic gung-ho affair.
Manipulative and overly reverent, We Were Soldiers quite frankly has nothing new to say, it simply brings a feel-good script and a decent set of special effects to a story
deserving of more complex and considered treatment.
