You and I are in agreement.
A bit heavy on the vanity and subliminal-life-lesson side and short on unscripted reality.
Not worth the hype some are giving it and in my mind nowhere near Braveheart. Close to the saline clean Patriot(Wannabe "Last of the Mohicans").
The actual event has its own voice...let it speak for itself. You dont have to manufacture the lessons of freedom with code words and scenarios.
I'm all for movies about Values and Freedom but having it spoon fed to me in prefabricated one dimensional scoops is lame. Just show me what happened....I'll do the math myself.
They bit on it a bit...when they showed the vietnamese trails coming down the mountains at night using candles...and also when they had just received their orders to find and destroy the enemy. The diologue started to go the right direction in talking about the guts of the matter....but then they go into a serinade[sp?] while the troop boards their helicopters. Corny.
Also the paying of tribute to the Peoples Army was a liberal "we are the world" slap in the face. Again...just tell the story and I'll figure out how I think & feel about it.
...In order to help the American People finally "Get It" that the American Soldiers fighting in the Vietnam War were real Heroes...
...Director/Screenwriter RANDALL WALLACE shows us the brave side of the North Vietnamese Communist Soldiers they fought against as backdrop and it works in his sending us that Message.
...The un-Brave Side of the North Vietnamese Communist Soldiers at IA DRANG-1965 not depicted in the this RANDALL WALLACE Film is depicted in the Book .."WE WERE SOLDIERS ONCE and YOUNG".. by the man who commanded us there.
...This Book descibes how the enemy Peoples Army of Vietnam (PAVN) Communsit Troops were chained up in the trees to snipe down at American Soldiers, how some PAVN Communist Troops were so drugged up for their Human Wave Assaults against us that American Soldliers had to jump up from our lines and knock down still standing multible wounded Enemy Troops with M-16 butts to clear the way for us to get at more imcoming enemy troops ...'cause that's the only way they'd do down.
...PAVN Communist Troops laughed giddily as they went thru the IA DRANG Valley grass killing our American wounded while really enjoying themselves doing it.
...Also to their own detriment in Battle the dark side of PAVN Communist Troops had them STOPPING during a crucial Human Wave Assault against Landing Zone X-Ray to loot and kill wounded Amercan Soldiers just as they were to break thru our lines, saving us.
...There's lot's to share here, but THE Message of .."WE WERE SOLDIERS".. - The Movie was Paramount.