This was the first movie Hollywood made about the Viet Nam War after John Wayne's "The Green Berets". It's set just before Johnson's reelection in 1964. It shows the problems the U.S. had in fighting the war. It's low budget and they tried to use the weapons, equipment and uniforms that were used in 1964. It's
about the quality of a made for TV movie. Some of the extras didn't look very Vietnamese and their hair was too long and some had mustaches. I don't think there were very many soldiers with mustaches in 1964. It got an R rating due to the language and violence, no nudity. It is a war movie though. It's a pretty good movie. I first saw this movie in Stillwater, OK in what had been the old Aggie Theater but had been converted into a twin theater. When I got to the theater I ran into a couple of guys from my dorm floor. Turns out the one I thought was just some hippy dude about my age had actually been to Viet Nam and was an ex-Marine and was three years older than me. We all enjoyed the movie and then we went to a beer joint and talked for a while. The best line in the movie was "Nobody drives slow in this country."
August 23, 2008
