WE WERE SOLDIERS (2001)

RANDALL WALLACE

War Action/Adventure True Stories 1960s Vietnam War Whisky's Wonders

Cast

MEL GIBSON MADELEINE STOWE GREG KINNEAR SAM ELLIOTT CHRIS KLEIN KERI RUSSELL

Plot

Lt Col Hal Moore is given the responsibility of setting up Americas first airborne cavalry regiment and it is not long before they have their first shot of action when Moore and his men are dropped into Ia Drang Valley in Vietnam and find themselves out numbered nearly 5-1 by the North Vietnamese. We Were Soldiers serves up all the requisite war action, heroism and sacrifice that we have come to expect, but the characters have no depth and the message never really bothers to go further than a Dan Dare style comradeship in arms. Slickly and explosively done but it doesn't stand with some of the exemplary war films of the last two decades...and don't even mention "Apocalypse Now" in the same breath.