a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Some reviewers here have missed the point: in no way, shape, or form does Last Days in Vietnam purport to be a documentary covering the whole of the Vietnam War and the rights and wrongs behind it. That documentary would take hours to chronicle such events. Instead, this is a snapshot of a single situation, the airlifting to safety of many South Vietnamese people in the dying days of Saigon.Where Last Days in Vietnam excels is in the contemporary footage of the event. The entire film is made up of old news footage of crowds fleeing and the unfolding situation at the US embassy in Saigon. Talking head footage is cut in to humanise the story, and the documentary as a whole turns out to be thoroughly engrossing: it's gripping stuff, moving with it, in which the best and worst of human nature is brought to life.Every talking head character here has an interesting story to tell. The director, Rory Kennedy, is the daughter of none other than Robert Kennedy and although I wasn't familiar with her work previously I'll be looking out for her in future. Last Days in Vietnam is superlative stuff, and unmissable viewing for anyone with an interest in those ill-remembered times.

This documentary was nominated for the Academy Award for Documentary Feature, losing to Citizenfour. There will be spoilers ahead:Using a combination of archival footage, news reports, still photos and interviews with participants in the events, including then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and then-Special Forces Richard Armitage, this documentary offers an in-depth chronicle of the evacuation of US personnel, US civilians and South Vietnamese ahead of the fall of Saigon to the North Vietnamese in April of 1975.The documentary starts with the ceasefire and withdrawal of combat forces by the US in 1973, with the expectation of a lasting peaceful, if uneasy, co-existence between North and South Vietnam. With the resignation of Richard Nixon in August of 1974, North Vietnam begins to become more belligerent towards South Vietnam, finally invading in late 1974/early 1975.Then-President Ford's attempts to secure additional aid for South Vietnam failed, but they would only have delayed the inevitable collapse. By April of 1975, it was obvious to most that the end was near.The bulk of this documentary chronicles the efforts to evacuate as many Vietnamese, along with US personnel, before the fall of South Vietnam completely to the advancing North Vietnamese army. It covers the efforts of many US diplomats, operatives and military to help those they worked with or, in many cases, wives, girlfriends and children, to flee the country for safety. Thousands of Vietnamese were evacuated in various ways. Some got out on the last airplanes to leave, but the documentary covers mainly those leaving by ship and by helicopter. It details official evacuations and just plain desperate efforts by Vietnamese pilots to get their families out.The archival footage and news reports are fascinating, but the heart of this documentary is in the interviews with people involved in the last days in Vietnam-from CIA operatives and embassy staff and Marines guarding the embassy to naval officers on ships receiving evacuees and escaped Vietnamese and a few who hoped to be rescued but for various reasons weren't. Often, their words are accompanied by footage, still photos or models of the US embassy compounds, which makes their comments all the more moving.Even though it becomes clear that mistakes were made in deciding when to evacuate and that there was a kind of "tunnel vision" in place which likely made things more desperate and chaotic than it needed to be, everyone in here is treated quite fairly and no one is scapegoated, which would have been very easy to do in one or two cases. Under the circumstances, things actually went reasonably well. Could things have been handled more expeditiously? Certainly, but that's 20/20 hindsight at this point.This is available on DVD, Blu-Ray and for download and is well worth getting/watching. Most recommended.

One of the ways I personally classify whether a documentary based on famous real-life events is good or not is whether I learn something new about it. For example, I didn't think the Robert McNamara movie, "The Fog of War" was good, because it just regurgitated things I already knew about Vietnam. Last Days in Vietnam, however, showed me new things that I didn't know about and found interesting. I won't list them all here, but the most fascinating thing for me (and they even had footage of it!), was all the South Vietnamese helicopters that landed on the aircraft carrier to leave the country, and because they couldn't store the helicopters anywhere, the military had to push them into the ocean so the next one could land.As an American who grew up during this time, Vietnam is still a raw experience for many of us. It was refreshing to see how many Americans felt responsible for the South Vietnamese, and tried to get as many of them out of there. You never really hear very much about those kinds of stories.Because of her family name, Rory Kennedy carries lots of baggage, mostly good, but some bad. However, along with the very personal documentary about her mother Ethel, she is proving to be very, very capable in this genre. I look forward to seeing more of her work in the future.

I sat in a small theater with people that were at least a generation older than me watching this documentary. I'm too young to remember Vietnam, was born in 1972. I am a Vietnam War history buff and have visited Vietnam on three separate occasions. This documentary was extremely well made and it includes some never seen before footage of the chaotic evacuation from Saigon. For an hour and a half I was glued to the movie screen. The story telling is excellent and it includes words from both the Americans and the South Vietnamese. Perhaps it would have been interesting to add a perspective from the North Vietnamese who were storming the city and why they allowed the helicopters to leave without challenging the evacuation. All and in all and excellent documentary and one that I enjoyed very much.