The Green Berets
Directed By: John Wayne and Ray Kellogg
Starring: John Wayne, David Janssen, Jim Hutton, Aldo Ray, Raymond St. Jacques, Bruce Cabot, Jack Soo, George Takei, Patrick Wayne, Luke Askew
| Studio: Warner Bros. Year: 1968 Rated: G Film Length: 142 minutes Aspect Ratio: 2.4:1 Subtitles: English SDH, French, German, Spanish (Castellano), Spanish (Latin), Danish, Finnish, Greek, Norwegian, Portuguese, Swedish Release Date: January 5, 2010 |
The Film **½
The Green Berets follows the exploits of an elite group of American soldiers during the Vietnam conflict. The bulk of the film follows Colonel Mike Kirby (Wayne) as he arrives with a handpicked Company of soldiers including his right hand man, Master Sergeant Muldoon (Ray), medic Sergeant "Doc" Mcgee (St. Jacques), resourceful scrounger Sergeant Peterson (Hutton), and "Gung Ho" soldier Sergeant Provo (Askew) to oversee the transition of command and complete the construction of a forward base Army encampment in conjunction with a squad of South Vietnamese Soldiers under the command of Captain Nim (Takei). Accompanying Kirby and his men in order to gain first hand knowledge of the conflict is George Beckworth (Janssen), a skeptical journalist whose newspaper is opposed to the war. The forward base is deep in a war zone, and under constant threat of being overrun by Viet Cong forces. Their efforts to complete it are hampered by regular mortar fire at night, VC terrorization of local villages, and, ultimately, a massive siege. The rest of the film follows Kirby's team on a covert mission behind enemy lines to kidnap a high-ranking and heavily guarded VC general with the aid of Kirby's South Vietnamese Army counterpart, Colonel Cai (Soo).Robin Moore's well-researched fiction book "The Green Berets" is chock full of remarkable stories about the American Army's Special Forces unit. One would think that all a film producer would have to do would pick any one of them and they would have the basis for an exciting movie paying tribute to these elite American troops. When John Wayne's decided to adapt the book through his Batjac production company, he chose two of the stories, but then wrapped them up in a red white and blue blanket of pro-war propaganda the likes of which had not been seen in American cinemas in 25 years.
The result was a film that was politically polarizing, unevenly paced, and peppered with a few remarkable action set-pieces. Quite a few viewers and critics found the film to be hopelessly naive, politically unpalatable, and curiously out of step with both the events of the war as they were being documented on television and the cinema of 1968. One man's "curiously out of step" being another man's "refreshingly traditional", the film still managed to find enough of an audience to become a modest sized hit.
41 years later, the film certainly does not play any less dated than it was upon its release, but cinema having moved on, concerns about it feeling out of step with its times are of less importance. Similarly, accusations by detractors that it was irresponsibly advocating an unwinnable and/or unjust armed conflict have less bearing on the film's merits 37 years after the Paris cease-fire agreement ended US military involvement in Vietnam than they did when the film was released in the midst of the war. Looking at it with modern eyes through the filter of history, the film suffers from the weakness that afflicts all but a select few propaganda films from any era. Every time the film turns itself over to the advocacy of the filmmakers' no longer directly relevant political views, it stops the proceedings in their tracks as if a commercial interruption had suddenly been inserted.
In the case of The Green Berets, these moments are stacked most heavily in the film's opening scenes, where the audience is shamelessly lectured on what they should think about the Vietnam War by Aldo Ray and Raymond St. Jacques through the dramatically awkward method of having their characters lecture a group of cynical journalists and "average Americans". After initially laying it on so thick with barely any artifice at all, the film's subsequent propagandistic elements are metered out regularly but less severely via interactions between Janssen's cynical reporter and members of the military outfit in which he is embedded. The standard war film method of canonizing allies and demonizing enemies carries the rest of the load. Interestingly, the complexities inherent to the stories being adapted from the source novel creep in and sometimes mildly subvert the message. While the South Vietnamese soldiers are generally painted as strong willed freedom fighters needing only the backing of Uncle Sam to even the odds against the Communist-backed Viet Cong, the acknowledgement that their ranks are heavily infiltrated by VC spies and that they have difficulty gaining the trust of civilian villagers subtextually suggests complexities the filmmakers determinedly avoid facing head-on.
Setting aside the film's dated political aims, the viewer is left with a war film that mixes intriguingly authentic aspects of how a circa-1968 Green Beret team works, drawn largely from the source novel, with defiantly old-fashioned broad characterizations and transparently manipulative plotting. Director Wayne and his longtime collaborator, screenwriter James Lee Barrett, leave no cliche untouched in their efforts to evoke audience sympathy for the ensemble cast of characters which is bad news if you happen to be a child, a puppy, or an officer with only one more day of service before returning home. The film does manage to be fitfully impressive, though, with an expertly staged siege sequence when the Viet Cong attempt to overrun the forward base being set up by Wayne's Colonel Kirby and his troops. The covert operation behind enemy lines that comprises the bulk of the film's final 40 minutes is also entertainingly staged, but it follows so abruptly on the heels of the combat sequences that it seems almost like a completely different movie.
The performances by the ensemble cast come across as a bit broad and one dimensional, but this actually feels appropriate given that those adjectives also describe how the characters are written. The only two characters afforded any opportunity for growth through the course of the film are David Jannsen's skeptical reporter and Jim Hutton's cynical "scrounger". Even in these cases, their character arcs are telegraphed by the film's transparently propagandistic angle with respect to Jannsen's character and its embrace of the all too familiar cliche of bonding with an orphan in the case of Hutton's character.
The film has frequently been criticized for its inauthentic look due to the use of American forests to represent Vietnamese jungles as well as a famous continuity gaffe in which a dramatic sunset at the film's conclusion appears to be happening in the eastern sky. These aspects of the production should not bother viewers with even a mild tolerance for artistic license.
As a side note, the film was rated "G" when the movie rating system was in its infancy, and has moments of bloody violence that would undoubtedly earn it a more restrictive rating if released today. Anybody who thought the rating was an indication that this would be the elusive "Vietnam combat movie for the whole family" can now consider themselves warned.
The Video ****
The 1080p VC-1 encoded transfer at the movie's original theatrical aspect ratio of 2.4:1 is pleasingly film-like and detailed. Natural film grain is apparent, but appears both lower in level and more finely resolved than in the most recent SD DVD presentation of the film. Source element artifacts, which included mild positive and negative speckling on previous video presentations of the film, are all but eliminated here. The only weaknesses in the presentation are some sporadic low intensity halos along high contrast edges and a handful of shots that seem to have sections of the frame out of focus. The latter is most likely a production and/or print artifact (Lens problems? Partially mis-aligned separation masters?) since it is also apparent on every version of the film I have seen previously. Most of the suspect shots occur during the first night spent by Kirby and his men at the forward base encampment. The smearing/lack of focus seems most prominent in the lower half of the screen, and does not appear to correspond with the depth of objects in the frame (i.e. it is not just an artifact of using long lenses).The Audio ***½
The English Dolby TrueHD 1.0 track effectively ports the mono theatrical mix to the home viewing environment. The prime beneficiary of the lossless audio encoding is the outstanding score from Miklos Rosza, which is possibly my favorite aspect of the entire movie. Dialog and effects are not quite as dynamic as the music, but are mixed very skillfully with impressive sequences including the arrival of multiple helicopters at the forward base and the NVA siege action centerpiece creating an illusion of sonic depth that may surprise those inclined to generally dismiss mono mixes. 192 Kbps Dolby Digital mono French, Spanish (Castillan), Spanish (Latin), and German tracks are also available.The Extras *½
The two extras on this blu-ray edition of The Green Berets are identical to those from the previous DVD edition.The Moviemakers: The Making of the Green Berets (7:12) is a contemporaneous "making of" featurette that was used to promote the theatrical release of the film. It has some behind the scenes footage and information on the location work in and around Fort Benning, Georgia, but it is mainly a promotional fluff piece. It is presented in 4:3 standard definition video encoded via the VC-1 codec.
The Theatrical Trailer (2:58) is a fairly lengthy promo that emphasizes Wayne and the cast of characters while providing a significant glimpse of nearly every action set-piece in the film. It is presented in 16:9 standard definition video encoded via the VC-1 codec.
Packaging
The disc is enclosed in a standard blu-ray case with the only insert being the standard "disc manufactured to highest quality standards/make sure your firmware is up to date/etc." disclaimer sheet. Cover art is derived from vintage movie promotional art and is a welcome improvement over the bland Wayne portrait used for previous SD DVD editions of the film. Menus are straightforward, and the disc is authored without any excessive use of Java, which means that the "resume" function of most BD players should work.Summary **½
John Wayne's The Green Berets is dated by its frustratingly preachy and transparently propagandistic elements and saddled with cliched plot and characterizations. This makes it less effective as a tribute to the capabilities and service of American Special Forces troops than it aspires to be. That being said, it still manages to incorporate a couple of effective action set-pieces and some interesting technical glimpses into modern warfare circa 1968. It is presented on Blu-ray disc with outstanding video marred only by some light and sporadic high contrast edge halos and what appear to be source flaws on one reel. Lossless mono audio does justice to Miklos Rosza's outstanding score, and the minimal extras include just a trailer and a vintage promotional behind the scenes featurette.Regards,
