Product Description

Exploration of the courage, valor and loyalty among an elite American combat division that is sent to battle in Southern Vietnam.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: R
Release Date: 8-AUG-2006
Media Type: DVD

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1420 in DVD
• Brand: GIBSON,MEL
• Released on: 2002-08-20
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Full Screen, THX, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 138 minutes

Amazon.com
Based on the book by Lt. Col. Harold Moore (ret.) and journalist Joseph Galloway, We Were Soldiers offers a dignified reminder that the Vietnam War yielded its own crop of American heroes. Departing from Hollywood's typically cynical treatment of the war, writer-director Randall Wallace focuses on the first engagement of American soldiers with the North Vietnamese enemy in November 1965. Moore (played with colorful nuance by Mel Gibson) and nearly 400 inexperienced troopers from the U.S. Air Cavalry were surrounded by 2,000 North Vietnamese Army soldiers, and the film re-creates this brutal firefight with graphic authenticity, while telling the parallel story of grieving army wives back home. While UPI reporter Galloway (Barry Pepper) risks his life to chronicle the battle, Wallace offers a balanced (though somewhat fictionalized) perspective while eliciting laudable performances from an excellent cast. Like the best World War II dramas of the 1940s, We Were Soldiers pays tribute to brave men while avoiding the pitfalls of propaganda. --Jeff Shannon

From The New Yorker
A bloody piece of hero worship devoted to an ideal commander-Lieutenant Colonel Harold Moore (Mel Gibson)-and to fighting and dying in the right way. The training is bruising, the leadership inspired, the wives as supportive as deeply rooted oaks. In 1965, early in the war in Vietnam, Moore leads units of the Army's Seventh Cavalry against a much larger North Vietnamese force. Mel Gibson is leathery but quick and alert, his eyes darting this way and that. When he runs around from one part of the perimeter to another, his M-16 blazing, the movie is exciting in a rudimentary, gung-ho way. The writer-director Randall Wallace stages much of the combat at very close range, with masses of North Vietnamese infantry hurling themselves against American riflemen. Recapitulating the many pictures made in the forties and fifties which portrayed the Americans as good and simple people fighting for a just cause, Wallace and Gibson have taken Vietnam out of history-essentially, they have assimilated it into the Second World War. -David Denby
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Amazon.com
Based on the book by Lt. Col. Harold Moore (ret.) and journalist Joseph Galloway, We Were Soldiers offers a dignified reminder that the Vietnam War yielded its own crop of American heroes. Departing from Hollywood's typically cynical treatment of the war, writer-director Randall Wallace focuses on the first engagement of American soldiers with the North Vietnamese enemy in November 1965. Moore (played with colorful nuance by Mel Gibson) and nearly 400 inexperienced troopers from the U.S. Air Cavalry were surrounded by 2,000 North Vietnamese Army soldiers, and the film re-creates this brutal firefight with graphic authenticity, while telling the parallel story of grieving army wives back home. While UPI reporter Galloway (Barry Pepper) risks his life to chronicle the battle, Wallace offers a balanced (though somewhat fictionalized) perspective while eliciting laudable performances from an excellent cast. Like the best World War II dramas of the 1940s, We Were Soldiers pays tribute to brave men while avoiding the pitfalls of propaganda. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews

VERY GOOD!
BASED ON TRUE EVENTS IT REALLY BRINGS TOO LIGHT WHAT SOME HAVE SACRAFICED FOR THIS COUNTRY!

MEL GIBBSONS BEST PERFORMANCE SINCE BRAVE HEART.

Vietnam
Based on the book written by Gen. Moore, I thought is was well acted, with great special effects. Furthermore I think it pays tribute to the soldiers, and there families, who had to fight that war. It follows the the book closely, and I am told that it is historically accurate.

A Great Film Demonstrating Enormous Resolve of Our Troops
This film is very intense, realistic and superbly shot. The production values are incredible. As a slice of life from the Vietnam era, the film captures the esprit de corps of the troops, the strength of the soldier's wives as well as the challenge of a new era in warfare. Mel Gibson is excellent. His sargeant, Sam Elliott, was a superb characterization of a tough sargeant who went through all three major parachute jumps in World War II. He is a no nonsense warrior.

All the more powerful is the portrayal of Gibson's faith in light of duty, courage and devotion to his men. Greg Kinnear did an excellent job as a challenged pilot creating a new Air-Cav warfare in the early days of Vietnam. His copilot "Too Tall" received the Congressional Medal of Honor decades ago. Kinnear's character finally received his CMH in the last year - long overdue.

Powerful. Memorable. Realistic.