Sorry, this movie sucks

Fresh and Exciting

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

What a movie!!!Not for the faint- hearted.It depicts the ultimate inhumanity of war.Michael J Fox is superb of the supreme cast.I believe such incidents unfortunately occurred.After watching the film,I was revolted by the way the Vietnamese young woman was treated by the American soldiers.May there never be another war.It was a relief to see the soldiers involved received the punishment they so rightly deserved.One realizes the complications of being in the armed forces.It is no wonder that so many returning soldiers suffer from Post Traumatic Depression.It makes the issue of being drafted deplorable.Soldiers should only be involved in a war by volunteering,not being drafted.

Just yesterday morning, AMC (that's American Movie Classics) ran an infomercial offering "more sex, less stress." That was followed by two Three Stooges shorts, then a heavily redacted version of CASUALTIES OF WAR. I'd seen the movie way back when, but I'd dismissed it as just another of Brian DePalmer's overblown would-be epics (like the vastly overrated SCARFACE, which features Al Pacino's worst-ever over-the-top performance). Because I'm not a video gamer, I have no idea if the first-person shooter games, set in a variety of war zones, feature any of the more True-to-Life perks that actual War provides- perks like Rape and Indiscriminate Murder. Certainly any video game set during The Vietnam War would have to feature such bonuses. As Nick Turse points out in his exhaustive study of The American War, KILL ANYTHING THAT MOVES, "atrocities were committed by members of EVERY infantry, cavalry and airborne division... That is, every major army unit in Vietnam." "Soldiers realized that small groups of civilians could be killed with impunity and logged as enemy war dead..." One medical officer listed a civilian's cause of death as "running from U.$. forces." And it was none other than Douglas MacArthur who set the tone for the war by telling General William Westmoreland: "You might have to employ a scorched earth policy in Vietnam." The U.$. released 30 BILLION pounds of munitions in Vietnam (and by the early 70s, there were 20 million bomb craters) and 70 Million liters of herbal agents- most notably Agent orange (which Turse refers to rightly as "ECOCIDE"). This was the equivalent of 640 Hiroshima bombs... "Detained civilians and captured guerrillas were often used as human mine detectors and regularly died in the process." The Biggest crime of all, called Operation Speedy Express, was, according to concerned soldier George Lewis, "... a My Lai each month for over a year." The International Commission of Enquiry Into U.$. Crimes in Indochina concluded: "... The main burden of responsibility must lie with those who have been making this policy." Said Kissinger: "Once we've broken the war in Vietnam, no one will give a damn about war crimes." As Huynh Thi Nay (whose son was murdered) said when she spoke about it: "It became dark as night." Maybe gamers could get extra points for Civilian deaths- or bonus points for Rape (unless they get caught, which might entail a loss of turn or something)...

Casualties Of War dramatises a single event from the Vietnam war, where a squad of US soldiers abduct a Vietnamese girl and take her with them on patrol for the purposes of "recreation," raping and eventually killing her. Sean Penn is the leader of the squad and Michael J Fox plays the only member who consistently speaks out against their actions and tries to help the girl, eventually becoming the lone voice which tries to get justice for her.It has been some years since I last watched this film, but simply recalling it for the purpose of writing these words chokes me up: the events of the first part of the film are profoundly disturbing and utterly heartbreaking, and credit to Thuy Thu Le, in her only film role, for portraying victim Oanh with such power and dignity.But credit must also go to Penn for his angry sergeant, shaken free from any moral compass he may once have had, and especially to Fox: his principled everyman shows that he was never the lightweight that his succession of light roles may have suggested.And credit, too, to director Brian De Palma - for once not trying to emulate Hitchcock, he has here produced an accomplished and moving drama which poses profound moral issues and leaves you wondering whether you would have had the courage to make a moral stand.

This is heart breaking to watch. Because it is so brutal and Sean Penn is so evil here, while MJ Fox so .. MJ Fox.And if you read about the details, the original story in the paper, the real sentences, the journalist and what he stood for all his career, all the more heart breaking.I think DePalma got a lot of slack for this. His 2 movies that opens the 80s --> Blow out and closing it --> this one are similarly in ending, however so that one is based on a true story the other not.This is what you get when a great technician with great material with great actors. It just clicks like clockworks. Every scene is a show stopper, every expression is intensified, every action perilous and full of scruples.