Soldiers at work
It has been over a quarter century since the last American body bag was airlifted out of Vietnam, and after a series of disturbing, castigating and sometimes surreal movies about that reviled war, Hollywood clearly feels that the coast is clear to present a Vietnam combat film that adheres more closely to the old rules of the genre. Veteran filmgoers will recognize the elements: The impossibly stoic and brave commanding officer who is tough on his men, but would walk barefoot over hot coals for them. The racially mixed company of soldiers who overlook their differences to become a lean, mean fighting machine. The "been there, done that" sergeant who rides the grunts for their own good. The raw recruit who is the first to die. The supposedly dispassionate observer who ends up joining or at least supporting the soldiers. And, of course, the families back home, especially the wives, who wait patiently for their men to return with their shields or on them.
We Were Soldiers contains all these requisite elements and then some as it re-creates the first significant battle between U.S. and North Vietnamese troops in late 1965. Four hundred American troops arrived in Ia Drang in the Central Highlands to find 2,000 North Vietnamese troops lying in wait. The film is based on a 1992 book by Hal Moore, the lieutenant colonel in charge during the battle, and Joe Galloway, who was the UPI reporter-photographer covering the action.
Mel Gibson plays Lieutenant Colonel Moore with a steely gaze and half-cocked grin, suggesting that beneath his tough exterior beats a heart of gold. Gibson's performance is sure to draw comparison's with John Wayne, especially in such seminal combat films as Sands of Iwo Jima (1949) and The Flying Leathernecks (1951). But the more relevant comparison is to Wayne's performances in John Ford's "Cavalry Trilogy"--Fort Apache (1948), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) and Rio Grande (1950). In those films about battles against the Indians, the hero's qualities transcend the rightness or wrongness of the cause.
