| 
 enlarge | Director: Randall Wallace
Actors: Mel Gibson, Madeleine Stowe, Greg Kinnear, Sam Elliott, Chris Klein
Studio: Paramount
Category: DVD
List Price: $12.98
Buy Used: $1.49
You Save: $11.49 (89%)
New (54) Used (84) Collectible (3) from $1.49
Avg. Customer Rating:  546 reviews
Sales Rank: 1336
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dvd-video, Full Screen, Thx, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 138
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.2
MPN: 097363400240
ISBN: 0792182103
UPC: 097363400240
EAN: 9780792182108
ASIN: B000068TPN
Theatrical Release Date: March 1, 2002
Release Date: August 20, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: from private collection, dvd and case are very good, no inserts
|
| Customer Reviews:
 Good Movie February 15, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Well done, this is a good one to watch for those of us who like war type movies. Worth the expense and will be a nice addition to your collection.
 Camaraderie and Heroism February 2, 2007
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
Heroism and camaraderie seem to go hand in hand in the better war films. Cy Endfield's ZULU and Andrew V. McLaglen's THE DEVIL'S BRIGADE come to mind. Somewhere, WE WERE SOLDIERS fits in that category and stature of film.
Mel Gibson's WE WERE SOLDIERS is a provocative war film. It works effectively as an action war film but that is a rather simplistic assessment. What makes this film effective is the camaraderie that flourishes and intensifies amongst the American soldiers, their valor, heroism and Mel Gibson's sincere performance as the dedicated Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore who is the first man on and last man off the field of battle. The film is both intense and emotional and we also get to see their families stateside adding another perspective to this military engagement. Perhaps the film's greatest strength is its intimacy of putting the viewer in the center of this frenetic encounter where staying alive for the good of the whole involved reflex-like action tinged with a great deal of energy and emotion.
Barry Pepper as journalist Joe Galloway and Duong Don as Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Huu An give standout performances. Dean Semlerand's cinematography and Kevin Kavanaugh's Art Direction were essential to the look and overall effectiveness of this film.
Camaraderie and Heroism February 1, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Heroism and camaraderie seem to go hand in hand in the better war films. Cy Endfield's ZULU and Andrew V. McLaglen's THE DEVIL'S BRIGADE come to mind. Somewhere, WE WERE SOLDIERS fits in that category and stature of film.
Mel Gibson's WE WERE SOLDIERS is a provocative war film. It works effectively as an action war film but that is a rather simplistic assessment. What makes this film effective is the camaraderie that flourishes and intensifies amongst the American soldiers, their valor, heroism and Mel Gibson's sincere performance as the dedicated Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore who is the first man on and last man off the field of battle. The film is both intense and emotional and we also get to see their families stateside adding another perspective to this military engagement. Perhaps the film's greatest strength is its intimacy of putting the viewer in the center of this frenetic encounter where staying alive for the good of the whole involved reflex-like action tinged with a great deal of energy and emotion.
Barry Pepper as journalist Joe Galloway and Duong Don as Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Huu An give standout performances. Dean Semlerand's cinematography and Kevin Kavanaugh's Art Direction were essential to the look and overall effectiveness of this film.
Into the Valley of Death February 1, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Mel Gibson's WE WERE SOLDIERS is a provocative war film. It works effectively as an action war film but that is a rather simplistic assessment. What makes this film effective is the camaraderie that flourishes and intensifies amongst the American soldiers, their valor, heroism and Mel Gibson's sincere performance as the dedicated Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore who is the first man on and last man off the field of battle. The film is both intense and emotional and we also get to see their families stateside adding another perspective to this military engagement. Perhaps the film's greatest strength is its intimacy of putting the viewer in the center of this frenetic encounter where staying alive for the good of the whole involved reflex-like action tinged with a great deal of energy and emotion.
best film on our worst war? January 25, 2007
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
I watched this film after a friend who was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam recommended it as the best film on that war. Starring Mel Gibson as Lt. Col. Hal Moore, the film tells the true story of the first major encounter between American troops and North Vietnam. There, in the la Drang Valley ("the Valley of Death"), 450 Americans were dropped by helicopters into a clearing and subsequently ambushed and surrounded by 2,000 Viet Cong from October 23 to November 6, 1965. In addition to capturing the bravery, patriotism, heroism, horror, and idiocy of war, this film is special for at least two reasons. First, it portrays the battles that the families who were left at home also had to fight while their loved ones were 12,000 miles away. The entire first third of the film focuses on the families at home, and the rest of the film repeatedly cuts back to them. Second, the film humanizes the enemy. The enemy must be fought, but they are not "evil." In fact, we learn that they are just like us. There are five prayers in this film, one of which is by a Viet Cong and which, verbatim, could have been uttered by any human being. Similarly, right after watching a young American widow grieve, the film cuts to a young Vietnamese widow crying as she clutches a diary returned from her dead husband (the diary contains her own picture that her husband had carried). The end of this film names the Americans who died at la Drang; it also pays tribute to "the members of the People's Army of North Vietnam who died in that place." There are no winners or losers in this film, or any political statements, for in the last few minutes we learn that these soldiers "fought not for country or for flag but for each other." We Were Soldiers is based upon the book We Were Soldiers Once, and Young (1992) by Lt. Col. Hal Moore and Joseph Galloway, a photo journalist who was embedded with the American soldiers for the duration of the battle.
|
|
|