This movie doesn’t make any sense in some areas. First off these 3 guys are working at a steel mill and then after the wedding they are going to
Vietnam. You have to go to boot camp and then some infantry training. You don’t go direct from the steel mill direct to Vietnam. Also when it shows
them in Vietnam there is no explanation how they were taken prisoner other than poof they are prisoners in the hooch by the river.
gusordMixed feelings on this film, liked it when I seen it first, many years ago, then like you, when I watched a few weeks ago, noticed things not right, still liked the Russian roulette bit though.
I can’t remember the last time I watched it through, but there is obviously some time lapse involved and things implied but not shown. There is also an element of suspension of disbelief involved…
Which makes it a perfect metaphor for the Vietnam War, both inside and outside Vietnam.
A classic. Always leaves me in a gloom after watching it…Christopher Walken was amazing.
I noticed in another film I watched the other night, there was a cut done to it, they could have did the same with this one.
You don’t also go straight from a steel mill to Special Forces!
You don’t go from a steel mill direct to active duty in any service without boot camp and in most cases additional training. This movie can be confusing especially to
those who never served in the armed forces. The only exception would be say you sign up for 2 years in the NAVY RESERVE go to boot camp then come home and
within a certain amount of time you go active duty for 2 years. This movie doesn’t present it this way. Hollywood must really think people are stupid and cant
figure this inaccuracy out.
gusordErrr…as mentioned by Nickdfresh there’s a major leap of time in the movie. It’s an intelligent movie about people and their lifes changed by war. You want a movie about drill, go and see “Full Metal Jacket” or “Tigerland”. You want action movies about Vietnam? Get any old Michael Dudikoff movie then.
Maybe it’s just you who’s not getting the point after all…
Exactly!
It’s a fictional film, not a documentary.
And for those of us who lived through that crazy period in countries which had troops involved in that war, perhaps it tries to capture the disjoint between the experiences of civilians at home and civilians turned into combatants in a foreign war which had no real bearing on their country’s survival.
Art, and cinema is a form of art, is always extreme. If art didn’t need to be extreme to get your attention, a painter wouldn’t need to do anything to a canvas as the blank canvas would be enough to be a lasting image. (And I say that in the expectation that somewhere there is an artist who has presented a blank canvas as an enduring work, and probably got squillions of dollars and critical approval for it.)
I don’t know if your complaint is in regards to the linear interpretation of events or the contemporary relative lack of societal wide experience with military duty in the United States since the end of compulsory military service in 1973. But I assure you the original film goers in 1979 would have been quite aware that anyone going to “'Nam” would have had no illusions of skipping training and going off to war since the majority would have had some personal connection to either direct military service of a loved one that served and would have been quite aware that there was a lapse of time and that this was not a literal, linear interpretation of events. That’s what art entails! I think the film was reflection of something maybe McNamara said about the American people turning against the war when the bodies come back not to major cities, but to small towns…