Hamburger Hill (1987)

Good concept, poorly executed.

Fantastic!

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

On 10 May 1969 Troops of the 101st Airborne Division engaged the enemy at the base of Hill 937 in the Ashau Valley. Ten days and eleven bloody assaults later, the Troops who fought there called it Hamburger Hill.It's got the score from Philip Glass. It follows the story of a large group of soldiers played by young new actors. Some will become famous including Michael Boatman, Don Cheadle, Dylan McDermott, Courtney B. Vance, Steven Weber. At the time, the lack of stars are meant to keep the film authentic. There are lots of touches to give authenticity to the movie. The movie seems like a series of Vietnam War vignettes of people talking bs and doing simple soldier things. The story doesn't really flow especially with the large cast. The focus is never on one character and it has a scatter shot effect. The action looks good considering this is pre-CGI. Once they're in the jungle, the intensity goes up and the action on the hill is the toughest of all. In the end, the movie achieves a sense of senselessness.

This movie has some nice images and shots, but overall, it looks like a really slick and bad Hollywood version of war. None of the characters are believable and the acting is sometimes so over the top it almost makes you cringe. Little stuff, like grunts that look like GQ models, officers that are supposed to be smokers, but you can tell they have never smoked before in their life, dialog that sounds like something penned by Max Fischer in Rushmore. An overall absence of any depth. It just looks like a movie based on other movies. I am a big fan of the Vietnam genre and read all I can on it, but this film seems quite distant from the gritty reality of the Vietnam War. This resembled more the Vietnam War being mocked by Tropic Thunder.

This is an '80s style war movie where the focus is on the individual soldier instead of the war itself. There's another war movie that''s similar in this respect from the '80s called the "Full Metal Jacket".Although the movie depicts the worst battle, it's the characters of each man that gives this story the meaning. What happens to each of them, you need to see the movie, but it will keep you interested for the entire course of the film.The movie shows what happens to the recruits during and after the by then hugely unpopular war in Viet Nam. United States had no moral reasons to be there, and the modus operandi was not acceptable to the generally middle class Americans. The brutality of the combat, and the sentiment of the society plus the mindset of each solider forms an interesting landscape of the movie.In this sense, this is one of a kind movie on Viet Nam war. The conflict to the soldiers were not only external but also internal. Good movie that has meaning to those who were there and those who stayed behind.

Those who have baked this movie seem to have done so because they found the characters unlikeable and undiscernible. That is because the movie expects you to realize that these people ARE you and me. They are not glorified Hollywood hero stereotypes. They are real people thrust into the madhouse that was Vietnam. It was a different time and what is seen on the screen is an accurate depiction of how people acted with each other then. It is also based on an actual event. That means it really happened!! All they had to do was take a hill back from the Cong. This is some fantastic glory of a mission. So, if you are looking for Arnold Schwartzenegger and mind-numbing special effects, it isn't here. It's real! Vietnam was insane. This movie conveys that accurately. Once you understand the reality and if you have actually lived during that time, it makes a kind of perverse sense.