Hamburger Hill

This is an excellent depiction of the insanity that was the war in Viet Nam. My view as a naval officer during a scenic tour of the Mekong near the Cambodian border and the Vietnamese city of Chau Phu, permitted me to be a witness to many, many occasions involving the wholesale abuse of humans by humans. The strain on mind, body and soul takes years (if ever) to repair and this film captures it. There are brief glimpses of this agony in some of the other films mentioned here in the reviews, e.g., Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket and Platoon. Each of these films have merit but are deeply flawed. Apocalypse Now is steeped in moral allegory to the expense of an accurate portrayal of the war; Full Metal Jacket is only 2/3 completed; Platoon becomes a Levi-Straussian moral tale with an arch villain and virtuous hero-- the latter heinously slain by the former with revenge exacted by the weary sojourner on the odyssey. OK. What do we have here with Hamburger Hill? A story? Heroic acts? Action? Not really. What we have is the horror and insanity of war. The film ends on the same pointless note as it began. But, you know what? Reading through the detractors of this film who touted the other potential three and slammed this one, I would not hesitate to bet they were never there. I could glance at the reviews and pick out the vets-- not just on the basis of whether they liked this film or not but of how they reacted to it. I know and know damn well. I too was there, brothers. See this film. It's well produced, directed and the cast is damn good. Check it out.