It's 1998 and we're revisiting the Vietnam War; something that had been done copiously in the 80's and a lot better.
In this flick we're focused on John Paul Vann (Bill Paxton). Why? I don't know. From what I gathered in this movie he was a self-aggrandizing adulterer. Maybe some people like that sort of person. When he wasn't screwing every young girl from America to Vietnam, he was pursuing his second passion: war. Like many arrogant men, John Paul believed he could win the war for America, the south Vietnamese, and democracy. Let him tell it and we would've had the war won in a matter of months, not the years it took for the U.S. to sheepishly withdraw.
I didn't like this movie because I didn't like the main character. He came off as the typical American: brash, sex-driven, and patronizing. Even when he was doing "good deeds" it looked like an attempt to show the poor misguided Vietnamese that Americans are good (hence better). He was going to show those Vietnamese how things should be done whether they liked it or not, and he would help himself to a couple of pretty, young, Vietnamese women while he was there. Even Vann's courageous moments too seemed self-serving.
I don't know why we needed this movie. Who asked for it? If I didn't know any better, I'd say it was written, produced, and directed by John Paul Vann. I will never understand the green light process of movie making.
In this flick we're focused on John Paul Vann (Bill Paxton). Why? I don't know. From what I gathered in this movie he was a self-aggrandizing adulterer. Maybe some people like that sort of person. When he wasn't screwing every young girl from America to Vietnam, he was pursuing his second passion: war. Like many arrogant men, John Paul believed he could win the war for America, the south Vietnamese, and democracy. Let him tell it and we would've had the war won in a matter of months, not the years it took for the U.S. to sheepishly withdraw.
I didn't like this movie because I didn't like the main character. He came off as the typical American: brash, sex-driven, and patronizing. Even when he was doing "good deeds" it looked like an attempt to show the poor misguided Vietnamese that Americans are good (hence better). He was going to show those Vietnamese how things should be done whether they liked it or not, and he would help himself to a couple of pretty, young, Vietnamese women while he was there. Even Vann's courageous moments too seemed self-serving.
I don't know why we needed this movie. Who asked for it? If I didn't know any better, I'd say it was written, produced, and directed by John Paul Vann. I will never understand the green light process of movie making.