HISTORY or HOLLYWOOD: Casualties of War (1989)

 

GUESS WHICH ARE HISTORY AND WHICH ARE HOLLYWOOD

1.       Meserve saves Eriksson’s life when he falls into a Viet Cong tunnel during a Viet Cong ambush.

2.       Meserve’s best buddy Brownie is killed by a grenade thrown by a farmer.  Eriksson hits a grenade with his grenade launcher.

3.       Meserve briefs the men on the mission.  They will go on a long range patrol to observe a Viet Cong camp.  He proposes kidnapping a Vietnamese girl for sex.

4.       The squad consists of Meserve, his crony Clark, the malleable Hitch, the new guy Diaz, and the moralistic Eriksson.

5.       They kidnap a girl from her hootch.  She is forced to carry a pack and is coughing a lot.

6.       Hitch shoots at a water buffalo that he mistakes for the enemy and Meserve chews him out.

7.       Eriksson stands up to Meserve who calls him a queer and threatens him with friendly fire.

8.       The rest of the squad take turns raping the girl including Diaz who reluctantly participates because peer pressure.

9.       Eriksson is left alone with the girl and is planning to leave with her when Clark returns.

10.    From their observation post overlooking the Viet Cong camp, Meserve orders Eriksson to kill the girl, then Hitch, then Diaz.

11.    Eriksson opens fire to halt the murder.

12.    Clark stabs the girl.

13.    There is a wild fire fight with numerous enemy casualties.  A gun boat arrives and is hit by friendly fire from helicopters.

14.    During the fire fight, the girl tries to escape down the train track.  Everyone except Eriksson open fire and she is killed and falls to the river bank.

15.    When Eriksson goes to Lt. Riley, Riley relates his baby at the hospital story and tells him “what happened is the way things are, so why try to buck the system?”

16.    Eriksson goes to Capt. Hill and is told that Hill is handling everything, but courts-martial are notoriously lenient.  He is very unsympathetic and mentions that Meserve did save Eriksson’s life.

17.    Clark attempts to frag Eriksson in the latrine and Eriksson confronts his tormentors with a shovel.

18.    Eriksson’s talk with a chaplain gets the courts-martial started.

19.    The four accused get various sentences with Meserve getting ten years hard labor for murder.

 THE ANSWERS

1.  Meserve saves Eriksson’s life when he falls into a Viet Cong tunnel during a Viet Cong ambush.  HOLLYWOOD  This crap was put in to start the movie with some action and establish that Meserve is a good soldier and Eriksson owes his life to him.

2.  Meserve’s best buddy Brownie is killed by a grenade thrown by a farmer.  Eriksson hits a grenade with his grenade launcher.  HOLLYWOOD  This scene was totally fabricated, but Eriksson did once hit a grenade with his grenade launcher.

        3.  Meserve briefs the men on the mission.  They will go on a long range patrol to observe a Viet Cong camp.  He proposes kidnapping a Vietnamese girl for sex.  HISTORY  Meserve felt the “boom boom” would be good for unit morale.  In reality, he added that they would kill the girl when they were done with her.

4.  The squad consists of Meserve, his crony Clark, the malleable Hitch, the new guy Diaz, and the moralistic Eriksson.  HISTYWOOD  The movie changed the names of the men and gave them Hollywood stock personalities.  There were actually five men on the mission.

5.  They kidnap a girl from her hootch.  She is forced to carry a pack and is coughing a lot.  HISTORY

6.  Hitch shoots at a water buffalo that he mistakes for the enemy and Meserve chews him out.  HISTYWOOD  The Hitch character did take a shot at a water buffalo, but Sgt. Gervase did not get upset.

        7.  Eriksson stands up to Meserve who calls him a queer and threatens him with friendly fire.  HISTORY

8.  The rest of the squad take turns raping the girl including Diaz who reluctantly participates because peer pressure.   HISTORY  No one showed any reluctance.

         9.  Eriksson is left alone with the girl and is planning to leave with her when Clark returns.  HISTYWOOD  Unbelievably, Storeby was left alone with the girl, but he did not try to let her escape.

         10.  From their observation post overlooking the Viet Cong camp, Meserve orders Eriksson to kill the girl, then Hitch, then Diaz.  HISTYWOOD  During the fire fight, Gervase and Thomas (Clark) began to worry that the girl would be spotted by Americans.  Gervase did not order several men to murder the girl.

         11.  Eriksson opens fire to halt the murder.  HOLLYWOOD

         12.  Clark stabs the girl.  HISTORY  Thomas took the girl into the bushes and stabbed her three times.

         13.  There is a wild fire fight with numerous enemy casualties.  A gun boat arrives and is hit by friendly fire from helicopters.   HOLLYWOOD  It was not much of a fight and only one enemy body was found afterwards.

          14.  During the fire fight, the girl tries to escape down the train track.  Everyone except Eriksson open fire and she is killed and falls to the river bank.  HISTYWOOD  The girl did try to escape, but Thomas chased her down and shot her in the head with his M-16. 

          15.  When Eriksson goes to Lt. Riley, Riley relates his baby at the hospital story and tells him “what happened is the way things are, so why try to buck the system?”  HISTORY 

           16.  Eriksson goes to Capt. Hill and is told that Hill is handling everything, but courts-martial are notoriously lenient.  He is very unsympathetic and mentions that Meserve did save Eriksson’s life.  HISTYWOOD  Hill did not so much cover up the crime as try to overlook it.  He was right about the probable result of a court-martial, but he was not belligerent and did not bring up Meserve saving Eriksson’s like because that had not happened.  Meserve did have a reputation as a good soldier.

          17.  Clark attempts to frag Eriksson in the latrine and Eriksson confronts his tormentors with a shovel.  HOLLYWOOD  There were some veiled warnings, but Storeby was transferred to a new unit as soon as he first told his story and there never was any attempt on his life.

          18.  Eriksson’s talk with a chaplain gets the courts-martial started.  HISTORY 

          19.  The four accused get various sentences with Meserve getting ten years hard labor for murder.  HISTORY  The movie covers the trials as one when actually there were four separate trials and Storeby was the lone prosecution witness at each.   The movie gets the sentences right, but De Palma curiously does not add a post script detailing the shameful reduction of the sentences.  All of the convicted spent substantially less jail time than they were originally sentenced to.  I was not able to find out why Gervase was not charged with rape.

 

RATING  =  .58

CRACKER? Casualties of War (1989)

                “Casualties of War” is Brian De Palma’s entry into the Vietnam War movies competition.  It was based on an actual incident known as “the incident on Hill 192” which occurred in 1966.  De Palma wanted to make the movie after reading Daniel Lang’s article in The New Yorker in 1969.  Lang later turned the article into a book entitled “Casualties of War”.  The movie was filmed in Thailand where the local cuisine ravaged the cast.  The bridge used in the climactic scene was part of the Japanese Burma railway system of River Kwai fame.  The budget was $22 million and the box office was $19 million.  The movie was a hit with most critics and is considered by some to be one of the better Vietnam War films.

                The movie opens with a night patrol in which PFC Max Eriksson (Michael J. Fox) falls partly into a Viet Cong tunnel and has his about-to-be-stabbed life saved by his Sgt. Meserve (Sean Penn).  Eriksson is a cherry who wants to be friendly with the Vietnamese civilians in spite of what the veterans tell him.  Their point of view seems to be confirmed when Meserve’s best friend “Brownie” is killed when a farmer throws a grenade while the squad is relaxing near a “friendly” village.  Back at base camp, Meserve outlines a mission to scout a Viet Cong camp.  He proposes they make a side trip to a village to acquire a Vietnamese girl as a sex slave.  Eriksson is not on board for this, but the other members of the squad go along with it. Clark (Don Patrick Harvey) is Meserve’s henchman.  He is a bitter ass hole who hates “gooks”.  Hitch (John C. Reilly) is a hick who is easily manipulated. Diaz (John Leguizamo) is a new addition who just wants to get along. 

                They kidnap a girl and take her with them.  They set up in an abandoned hootch and proceed to rape her.  Each takes a turn with Diaz participating due to peer pressure, but Eriksson refusing in spite of threats from Meserve and Clark.  The next day they locate the Viet Cong camp and set up an observation post to call in an air strike and a gun boat.  Meserve decides the girl must be killed.  The resulting atrocity leads to Ericksson bringing charges against the other members of the squad.  A court-martial results.

                 Michael J. Fox does an outstanding job playing the naïve, moralistic Eriksson.  It is his best performance in my opinion.   John C. Reilly (his first film), Don Patrick Harvey (playing his usual typecast bad guy), and John Leguizama (his second role) are solid. Thuy Thu Le is remarkable as the doomed Oanh (it was her only acting credit). Plus we get the bonus of Dale Dye in a fiery take on ass-covering brass. The only problem is the scene-chewing of Sean Penn as Sgt. Meserve. The performance has been praised, but not by me. His hammy portrayal of the villain is distracting.  (See the poster.)  He plays Meserve as a retarded bully and made the “actor” decision to vocalize him as such.  Oscar please!  Imagine a movie where he is the weak link in a cast with three comedians in their first substantial dramatic roles. His emoting of faux grunt slang is the worst thing about the movie.  At one point he spouts the familiar “this is for fighting, this is for fun” but gets the hand gestures backwards!  This is typical of a script that seems to throw in grunt slang to establish realism, but comes off as trying too hard and has Hollywood actors mouthing words they obviously don’t understand.  Meserve refers to an enemy ambush as a “mad minute”, for instance.  (For those not familiar with Vietnam War slang, a "mad minute" was when an American unit fired all its weapons into the bush for a minute.)  More bizarrely, when they locate the enemy camp Hitch proclaims “there’s a bunch of them cruel-hearted little people.”  Huh?

                Although the soldier talk is lame, the rest of the script is powerful and the movie tells a story that needed to be told.  In fact, the story was so powerful that the movie could not have been made until well after the war.  De Palma adds some military justice to combat to produce a movie that is similar to “Paths of Glory” in that respect.  It is not in a league with that classic, but it does tell a true story well.  The cinematography is what you would expect from De Palma.  He uses deep focus, odd angles, and off center shots.  The rape scene is especially well done as a stationary camera from mid distance gives the outside looking in perspective.  The music is orchestral with a lot of pan flute and surprisingly no Vietnam era tunes.

 The movie does not avoid some common Vietnam movie clichés.  We get the required death of the clueless cherry and the authorities trying to cover up the atrocity.  One of the unit is looking forward to going home soon when he is killed.  The movie would have seemed even more clichéd if it wasn’t based on a true story.  The movie does track the book fairly well until the obligatory Hollywood insistence on a big set piece battle to satisfy combat junkies.  The enhancements are acceptable because the movie does bring to the screen a story that needed to be told.  The Eriksson character was a real hero even though he does not fit the usual war movie template of killing the enemy in heroic ways.  In a war like Vietnam, more should be made of the heroism of the soldiers who did not succumb to the corruption of that war.  Unfortunately, although De Palma obviously was trying to make a statement about that corruption, he dilutes his message by not adding a post-script about the Army’s wrist-slapping handling of the war crime.

Is it going to crack my 100 Best War Movies?  Probably not.  It is a must see movie and well done, but it is only in the middle of the pack of Vietnam War movies.

GRADE =  B

the trailer

The Boys in Company C (1978)

                “The Boys in Company C” is the first in a trilogy of Vietnam War films by director Sidney Furie (the others are “Under Heavy Fire” and “The Veteran”).  It was released in 1978, the same year as “The Deer Hunter”, “Coming Home”, and “Go Tell the Spartans”.  And one year ahead of the similarly structured “Apocalypse Now”.  The first half of the movie is the boot camp section and the rest of the movie takes place in Vietnam.  The movie has its fans and is sometimes mentioned on lists of the best Vietnam War movies.

                The story begins in 1967 at an Marine base for boot camp.  Our heterogeneous unit of recruits arrives.  Alvin (James Canning) is a budding writer and will keep a diary and be the narrator.  The other members are also stereotypes.  Vinnie (Michael Lembeck) is the scheming, ladies’ man because he is Italian-American.  He is from Brooklyn, of course.  Washington (Stan Shaw) is the belligerent urban black.  Brisbee (Craig Wasson) is the hippie.  Billy Ray (Andrew Stevens) is the gung-ho cracker.  Hair cutting scene.  In the barracks it turns out that our crew is dysfunctional, but the movie does not follow up on this.  They are trained by Staff Sergeant Loyce (R. Lee Ermey).  (According to legend, Stanley Kubrick was not aware of this when he hired the supposedly green Ermey to play the same role in “Full Metal Jacket”.)  Ermey is actually Drill Instructor lite compared to Master Sergeant Aquilla (Santos Morales) who gets the scene chewing reamings.  Training montage.  Trips to the brig.  Before shipping his charges off to the Nam, Loyce tries to convince Washington to step up into a leadership role.  I assume he looked at the rest of the men and decided the best he could do was a ghetto thug.

"I want you to lead this unit into combat and trust
that you will not try to smuggle large quantities of drugs"

                On the troop ship headed for Vietnam, their CO trains them in Viet Cong tactics by likening the war to a soccer match.  Clumsy foreshadowing of the climax of the movie.  The commander is an incompetent buffoon, naturally.  The movie now proceeds into a series of vignettes proving that the war was a farce meant to advance the careers of American officers and the fortunes of South Vietnamese leaders.  They go on patrols, they get ambushed, they frag a general’s trailer.  The usual stuff.   Meanwhile, the man Loyce tabbed as the leader is working out a deal to smuggle drugs back to his homies in body bags.  Vinny and Alvin are doing their imitation of Rivera and Friedman from “A Walk in the Sun”.  This all builds up to the climactic soccer match against a loathsome ARVN general’s squad.  If they take a dive, they will be taken out of combat.  To avoid going to Khe Sanh, all these Americans have to do is the one thing Americans cannot do – play to lose.  (The scenario is similar to that of “Victory”.)

                As I mentioned, this movie is highly regarded by some people I respect.  However, I do not see where they are coming from.  “The Boys in Company C” is a truly terrible war movie.  The acting is bad.  The cast is too sincere.  Plus it is a second rate cast.  Most of the actors were unknowns and tellingly, most remained relatively unknown.  Ermey went on to build on his performance and Stevens had a nice career, but the rest were appropriately forgotten.  They were not helped by the lame and heavy-handed script.  The characters are shameful clichés and the scenes are predictable.  The dialogue is cringe-inducing.  As a tutorial on the war, the movie is poor.  The tactics are the reflection of a screenwriter who knows little of the war.  The unit exhibits no fire discipline and no security while on missions.  A claymore is used to blow up the general’s trailer.  Do some research please!

                The movie would be tolerable if it did not devolve to one of the worst endings of any war movie.  The soccer match is a blot on both the sport and war movies.  As a soccer coach, I can assure you nothing about the match is based in reality.  You do not need to be a fan to know that a baseball player (no matter how good the athlete) like Billy Ray is not going to go one-on-eleven against more talented players and score a goal.  Keep in mind that the rest of the American team consists of nonathletes who have never played soccer .  At least in “Victory”, the screenwriter put soccer stars on the team and put the only dufus (Sylvester Stallone’s Yank) in goal.  At least in “MASH” the culminating football game was intentionally funny.  To make matters worse, the ridiculous soccer match in “Boys” leads into a culminating scene that is laughable and ends any chance for the movie to go out with its head held high.

 

               1978 was a great year for Vietnam War movies - in spite of the release of this piece of crap.  It reminds me a lot of "Siege of Firebase Gloria".  Both have R. Lee Ermey in them and both have fans.  I love R. Lee, but I can not put either movie in the top ten Vietnam War movies.  In fact, both are among the worst movies set in that war.

 

GRADE  =  F