We Were Soldiers

2 Pages 597 Words

The film I decided to review was a Vietnam War based movie that took place early in the war called “We Were Soldiers.” Mel Gibson one of the major characters produced the movie. “We Were Soldiers” was directed by Randall Wallace and was completed and released in 2002.
This is the true story of 450 U.S. soldiers, early in the Vietnam War, who found themselves surrounded by 2,000 North Vietnamese regulars in the Ia Drang Valley, in what became the first major battle of the extended conflict. Gibson stars as Lt. Col. Hal Moore, the man who reluctantly but boldly lead the first American ground troops into the Ia Drang Valley on November 14, 1965, 11 years after the occupying French were massacred in the same location, as established in the film's brutal World War I-styled prologue.
It becomes clear even before Moore and his Seventh Cavalry, symbolic to the same unit General Custer commanded, leave Fort Benning, Georgia kissing their wives and kids goodbye knowing they're headed into a near-impossible situation.
Within minutes of landing from a squadron of low-flying helicopters, the Seventh is attacked by Viet Cong forces, split and pinned down for a two-day firefight.
Under-prepared, outnumbered and ill-informed about the resistance they'd encounter, the unit loses men left and right in a cinematic but realistic and tensely sustained battle that takes lives without warning and without overdramatic elaboration.
While writer-director Randall Wallace has true events and real characters on his side, he's sometimes too obvious about just who will die. Among the major characters are a stern, tough sergeant major Basil Plumley (Sam Elliott) who has already fought in two wars and prefers a .45 pistol to the M-16, a fearless helicopter pilot Major Bruce Crandall (Greg Kinnear) and a 2nd Lieutenant Jack Geoghegan (Chris Klein), a new father and an All-American boy who wears a child's bracelet with his newborn daughter's name on it i...