★★★★★○○○○○ [ 5/10 ]
Besides the Holocaust the Vietnam War is pretty much one of the most touched upon topics in motion picture history. With that being said I've seen most of them. And to be quite frank I am convinced that this movie is one of the worst in this particular genre. It lacked a clear structure (the story was all over the place and felt inconsistent at times), there was basically no character development, and the special effects were laughable, to say the least. All of the explosions in the movie looked like fireworks. I kid you not. There were some scenes that I really liked but I can't get over the fact that they were followed up by firework explosions. In some scenes even the projectiles were replaced by "fireworks". In other words: it looked like they were shooting plasma beams out of their guns (just like in Star Wars).
The only good thing about the movie was the cast. A lot of my favorite actors starred in the movie but that doesn't make up for the aforementioned points.
Yes, the story was quite authentic in the way it was told but the subpar special effects took away from the presentation.
Final verdict: wouldn't recommend (watch "Apocalypse Now" instead)
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091763/
Ontology: #movie #review #Vietnam #war #vietnamwar #WillemDafoe #warmovie #nam #classic