Product Description

John Wayne leads his special forces troops against the enemy in this first Hollywood treatment of the Vietnam War. It's rugged battle action all the way. David Janssen and Jim Hutton co-star. The DVD is a Double Sided Disc.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3089 in DVD
• Brand: Warner Brothers
• Released on: 2007-05-22
• Rating: G (General Audience)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, Vietnamese
• Subtitled in: English, French, Spanish
• Dubbed in: French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 142 minutes

Features

• John Wayne leads his special forces troops against the enemy in this first Hollywood treatment of the Vietnam War. It's rugged battle action all the way. David Janssen and Jim Hutton co-star.Running Time: 141 min. Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE Rating: NR Age: 085391158608 UPC: 085391158608 Manufacturer No: 115860

Amazon.com
Anyone who fought in Vietnam can tell you that the war bore little resemblance to this propagandistic action film starring and codirected by John Wayne. But the film itself is not nearly as bad as its reputation would suggest; critics roasted its gung-ho politics while ignoring its merits as an exciting (if rather conventional and idealistic) war movie. Some notorious mistakes were made--in the final shot, the sun sets in the east!--and it's an awkward attempt to graft WWII heroics onto the Vietnam experience. But as the Duke's attempt to acknowledge the men who were fighting and dying overseas, it's a rousing film in which Wayne commands a regiment on a mission to kidnap a Viet Cong general. David Janssen plays a journalist who learns to understand Wayne's commitment to battling Communism, and Jim Hutton (Timothy's dad) plays an ill-fated soldier who adopts a Vietnamese orphan. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews

Odd, but memorable...
As others have mentioned, this is perhaps the only pro-war film ever made about our involvement in Vietnam, either at the time of the war or since.

Pretty much these days, nobody espouses a pro-war stance on the Vietnam conflict. It was not a "good" war, after all, and the war will always be part and parcel with the agony of America's social chaos in the late 60's and early 70's. However, at the time, the social battle lines were well defined between the peaceniks and the hawks; those against the war, and those all in favor of it. Without the thirty-plus years of hindsight to help them put this conflict in perspective, the hawks were pretty gung-ho. Likewise, the the peaceniks, who thought that if we just "love each other" everything would be alright, looks pretty naive and childish. If only the world were so simple.

Like the war, this film engenders strong feelings in those who see it. The DUKE was a known hawk, and you can see it shine through in every line, and in every scene. Like most hawks at the time, I suspect that The DUKE simply thought Vietnam was just like any other war (most likely, World War II), and it was incomprehensible to them that anyone would be against it. The film, in turn, reflects the hawk viewpoint.

In other words, you could substitute the Vietnamese with the Japanese in WWII, and the film would be more or less the same (good, upstanding Americans vs. big bad empire). The capture of the enemy general is pure WWII melodrama. The character of Petersen, the "scrounger", is also a stock character from a WWII movie. The staging of the action, the commando raid, blowing up a bridge, etc., all scream WWII.

DUKE co-directs, and despite being filmed in Georgia (which looks nothing like Southeast Asia!), the results are really pretty good. The raid to capture the enemy general is laughable, but tense and exciting nevertheless. The characterizations are solid. The film flows nicely, and isn't too long or too short. The cinematography is workable, and at times, even impressive. There's plenty of action, too!

When you see DUKE react to the child running from helicopter to helicopter looking for Petersen, you cannot help but have respect for this film. Certainly one of the best endings in American film history follows. Politics and anti-war sentiment of today's PC society aside, this is a great war film that honors the best of the best; the Green Berets.

Let me take a moment and say a word or two about David Janssen's role as George Beckworth, the reporter for a left-wing and anti-war newspaper. The character is a little too obvious, and at first, a little too strong on the anti-war sentiment. His conversion was a little too predictable, but the handling of his conversion to pro-war is very well-handled. Ultimately, I think it was a believable transformation, and this is due entirely to Janssen's talent. In the hands of another, less skilled actor, the Beckworth character could have been a big sore point, but Janssen makes Beckworth a quiet force, a wall of anti-war sentiment needing to be erroded away by the reality of the situation he finds himself in. In many ways, I think Janssen's underplayed approach for Beckworth makes him seem more real, and ultimately sells the character. It helps sell the movie too, despite our modern perspective on the war.

Appearing in supporting roles are Jack Soo (Nick Yemana on "Barney Miller"), George Takei (Sulu on "Star Trek"), and Bruce Cabot. Cabot had starred in a great many films, and "The Green Beret" is one of his last. He was a favorite DUKE co-star, appearing with DUKE in "Hellfighters", "Big Jake", "Chisum", "The War Wagon", "In Harm's Way", "McLintock!", "Hatari!", and others. Cabot is probably most famous for rescuing Fay Wray from King Kong. Also on hand is The DUKE's son, Patrick Wayne. Patrick appears as the commander of a Seabee team, following in his father's footsteps (DUKE starred in the famous homage to the outfit, "The Fighting Seabees").

DUKE fans should try to locate a copy of the video "No Substitute For Victory" (available on this site), in which DUKE hosts a right-wing documentary look at our reasons for fighting in Southeast Asia. Watching this documentary after the film will give the viewer new insights into the thinking of the hawks at the time, and their position during the Vietnam conflict.

Take that, Uncle Ho!
If you ever read Gustav Hasford's "The Short-Timers" (which "Full Metal Jacket" was based on) you know how he felt about this movie: "Let's watch the Duke and Mr. Sulu karate-chop Victor Charlie in a Kodicolor fantasy about Vietnam." In other words, he thought it was bunk. So does everyone else on the left, who have bought into the myth that Vietnam was a purely guerilla war and that the human-wave assaults employed by the NVA/VC on Col. Kirby's camp in the film would never have happened in real life. In point of fact almost 90% of the fighting in Vietnam was of the conventional type in the Central Highlands or the valleys ("We Were Soldiers") while only 10% of the troops were employed in the rice paddies you see in movies like "Platoon." Whenever the NVA fought out in the open, a la the Tet Offensive, they were well and truly beaten, but their leadership was ruthless and understood that by trading 5 Vietnamese lives for one American, the U.S. will to fight would eventually break. They knew the American public had only tepid support for Vietnam and would not accept the losses. The result, of course, we all know. Hanoi Jane what she wanted and so did Uncle Ho. Too bad Jane didn't go back in say, 1975 and spend some time in a re-education camp. They could have taken pics of her in a tiger cage, eating bugs and rotting from typhus.

If you are reading this you probably know the story of the movie.
John Wayne's Col. Kirby and his elite Special Forces "A" Team (no, not the one with Hannibal and Face and B.A. Barracus)is sent to Vietnam to establish base camps which offer protection to the local farmers from the murderous Viet Cong (whose crimes against their own people are well documented here). The soldiers teach the locals how to fight while providing basic medical care and 20th century improvements to their primeval way of life. There is the usual big John Wayne type battle as the VC try to overrun the camp, followed by a commando raid deep into enemy territory, and a tragic-heroic ending. But the movie is more than the sum of its parts. It is not mere entertainment, it is personal propiganda, designed to present the Duke's argument for why America was fighting in Vietnam at all. The only failing is its sappiness and jingoism, which make it easy for opponents to ridicule. But making fun of it doesn't take away the fact that the Duke's argument was based on something he is rarely credited for -- human decency. What "right" did we have in Vietnam? I guess the same "right" we had to land on the beaches of Normandy. We had no "right" at all -- it was just the "right thing to do", to support a bad government (South Vietnam) against a much worse government (North Vietnam) that used methods like mass killings of teachers, civil servants, nuns, missionaries, and village chiefs to destabilze the South and forcibly unite the country. You can argue about the legitimacy of taking sides in a civil war all day, but any country that uses methods like burying people alive and raping women to death as a matter of military policy probably deserves to be opposed, yes?

Anyway, let me take a moment to say I LOVE THIS FREAKIN' MOVIE. Growing up, good old Washington D.C. Channel 20 (remember when you only had ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS and your one local channel? Channel 20 was ours) played this movie, (along with "The Battle of the Bulge" and "The Bridge at Remagen" and some other classics) about once every other day. Even the thought of it brings a smile to my face. Here was a guy, John Wayne, who had the guts to make a film this flag-shakingly right wing at a time when patriotism was growing unfashionable and millions of people were abandoning and spitting on the ideals that he embodied -- which, by the way, a few of us still hold true. As a movie, "The Green Berets" has a hard ideology of anti-communism and shows the newfangled Special Forces as a sort of elite brotherhood consecrated to fight against it. I think a lot of the hate directed against this movie comes from the surity of Kirby's (meaning John Wayne's) beliefs. They are rock-solid and not up for debate or negotiation. He understands what will (and did) happen to Vietnam if the North wins the war, and fights bitterly to prevent this from happening, while simultaneously trying to win over a stubborn journalist who has legitimate doubts about our involvement. No question, this movie is jingoistic and predictable, a Vietnam war movie packed in WWII casing, but who cares?

Motion Picture; "The Green Berets"
For those who are fans of "The Duke" (John Wayne). This is yet another example of a very good John Wayne movie. Though the subject matter is controvercial, even today. If your a fan of "War Movies", this film is quite good, and an excellent addition to any collection. The story presentation would be considered weak by today's standards, as would the special effects. Still, not bad considering the period. There were a few touching moments to the story, which added a nice diversity, as opposed to the action which, as I said before, is period specific to 1967-68 when this was filmed.The best that Hollywood could do at the time. Overall, still worth adding to one's collection.