Im Vietnamkrieg ist ein Soldat der Außenseiter seiner eigenen Truppe, als sie unnötigerweise eine Dorfbewohnerin entführen.Im Vietnamkrieg ist ein Soldat der Außenseiter seiner eigenen Truppe, als sie unnötigerweise eine Dorfbewohnerin entführen.Im Vietnamkrieg ist ein Soldat der Außenseiter seiner eigenen Truppe, als sie unnötigerweise eine Dorfbewohnerin entführen.
- Auszeichnungen
- 1 Gewinn & 5 Nominierungen insgesamt
Empfohlene Bewertungen
The good. Excellent score. Once past the intro, powerful mood. Riveting story. Well built scenario, very logical and nicely paced. Emotionally disturbing.
The actors. Michael J. Fox and Sean Penn are just perfect as antagonist. Don Harvey fits his crazy role very well. John C. Reilly plays the simpleton with convincing clarity. And I'll just mention in passing a good performance by Ving Rhames.
The bad. The initial jungle scenes lack realism, as well as some over-acting by the black guy in the first part.
The ugly. Nothing.
The result. An emotional and brutal movie. Not for the faint of heart.
Brian de Palma obliges us to enter into that indescribable hell, so that we might, with a bit of luck, if our feelings can bear the torture of witnessing such inhumane irrationality, understand a little more the agonising palpable naked terror which so many men had to go through.
However, whether Michael J. Fox or whether Sean Penn played their part better seems to overlook an obviety: without that performance by the Vietnamese girl, Thuy Thu Le, this film would have been forgotten years ago. My first seeing of that fragile creature some years ago left me nauseated, my stomache churned and I had bad dreams for several nights. That pathetic little face and her screams of anguish haunted me for days afterwards. Her performance was so compelling, rivetting, anguishing, it had me hating being a man. I only just stopped short of throwing up. Perhaps nobody expresses this better than `Tony's Corner: a Fan's Notes' (www.colba.net):
<< the performance of a young actress, a woman named Thuy Thu Le. It is to my mind, one of the bravest, most courageous, and one of the most heartbreakingly real pieces of acting that I've ever seen the intolerable suffering that Thuy's character Oahn endures, her emotional intensity ... searing power, of blistering emotion, and raging despair, the outstanding performance of Thuy Thu Le is central to it's success >> (end partial quote)
Amen.
It is one of those performances that no Oscar can ever pay for: indeed such a triviality would have been an insult. The film is cruel, sickening, loathsome, heartbreaking; but something humane, something I can't explain, something deep inside me, compelled me to see this poor `wretch' again, compelled me to witness once again her tremendous scream of despair against the bestial inhumanity of war any, every and all war. I have no love of morbidity: I shun such ridiculous programmes. But this poor creature called Thuy Thu Le forced me to see the film for a second time.
Enough: I will never see this film again. I have seen naked desperation and fear so realistic that my soul seethes to boiling point and is about to burst thus twice. That will do. In the end we are all casualties of war.....
No vote: I cannot reduce this to a simple vote. It just would not have any real meaning, would it?
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1 (Panavision)
Sound format: 6-track Dolby Stereo
(35mm and 70mm release prints)
During a routine field trip at the height of the Vietnam War, a young soldier (Michael J. Fox) rebels against his commanding officer (Sean Penn) and other members of his patrol when they kidnap a defenceless Vietnamese girl (Thuy Thu Le) and subject her to a terrifying physical ordeal.
Unfairly overshadowed by the simultaneous theatrical release of Oliver Stone's pompous - but still impressive - BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY (1989), Brian DePalma's CASUALTIES OF WAR recreates a harrowing incident from the Vietnam conflict - first reported in 'New Yorker' magazine in 1969 - in which a group of otherwise decent men succumbed to their own worst impulses and committed a terrible crime. Filmed with typical cinematic bravado by master craftsman DePalma, the movie uses every inch of the scope frame to convey both the duality of the landscape (vast swathes of breathtaking countryside, where sudden death lurks around every corner) and the moral vacuum which stretches the two central characters (Fox and Penn) to breaking point. Crafted with blistering simplicity by screenwriter David Rabe (himself a Vietnam veteran and author of the acclaimed stageplay 'Streamers'), the soldiers are depicted as brave individuals whose principles are shattered by their traumatic combat experiences, leaving Fox to essay the role of peacemaker in a world where all the rules have been turned upside down. Thuy - a model with no prior acting experience - is truly heartbreaking as the soldiers' terrified prisoner, and her ultimate fate is so horrific (arguably the most disturbing set-piece of this director's entire career), many viewers will be too appalled to see the film through to its inevitable conclusion. All in all, this uncompromising drama emerges as one of DePalma's strongest films to date.
Though Sean Penn's got several great films to his credit, by far this is the best work of Michael J. Fox on the big screen. His soldier with a conscious who can't live with himself after witnessing an act of barbarity that the other men of his squad commit should have brought him an Oscar nomination. In fact there could have and should have been a few of them for this film.
Fox plays a young soldier only a few weeks in Vietnam. On patrol Sergeant Sean Penn saves his life, but then on a second patrol because Penn and friends could not get leave to bleed the lizard as they say, they kidnap a young Vietnamese woman and take her on patrol. All the men on the patrol, Penn, Don Harvey, John C. Reilly, and John Leguizamo all gang rape the girl, but Fox refuses. Later on he's got a crisis of conscience.
Kids who grew up on World War II movies and westerns with clearly defined good and bad guys were ill prepared for a war in Vietnam. So was our government which had been involved in more or less degree since the end of World War II and the breakup of French Indochina. The subtleties of the regional politics eluded our policy makers in Washington. It was mighty hard to tell who was a friend and who was an enemy. You treated anyone with a yellowish pigmentation and slanted eyes as an enemy, the only friends you knew were the ones wearing the same green jungle fatigues as you were.
The war twisted Penn and Harvey. Leguizamo and Reilly were essentially followers, only Fox who hadn't been there long enough to have his sense of morality impaired could see this was all wrong. That's the frightening part of Casualties Of War. None of the four could see anything wrong, even Leguizamo who sees his first duty as to stick with the guys who have your back in the field.
As good as Fox and Penn and the rest of the Occidental cast is, the best performance in the film is Thuy Thu Lee. As the bewildered and frightened young girl she will positively break your heart with her one and only film performance.
Casualties Of War was shot in Thailand so we're seeing actual Southeast Asia locations. Brian DePalma's direction of his stellar cast is right on target. Don't ever miss Casualties Of War about the ultimate Vietnam experience.
"Casualties of War" (1989) separates itself from other Vietnam War movies by focusing on the incident at hand, including the build-up and aftermath. Its uniqueness is augmented by Brian De Palma's slightly off-kilter style. The picture balances the beauty of the location and the artistry of Brian De Palma's filmmaking with the horror and ugliness of war & rape.
It's also realistic and compelling while simultaneously being mundane, which is why some viewers might find it boring. In other words, this is more of a gut-wrenching war drama with some action than a typical war flick with explosions and action thrills galore. It fairly closely follows the real story; Google Incident on Hill 192 for details.
The movie runs 1 hour, 59 minutes, with the original Theatrical Cut being 6 minutes shorter. It was shot in Phang Nga, Kanchanaburi & Phuket, Thailand, and Dolores Park, San Francisco, California.
GRADE: A-/B+
Wusstest du schon
- WissenswertesFor Michael J. Fox's shots, Sean Penn would be telling him that he was just a little television actor and nothing more, to get genuine reactions for director Brian De Palma.
- PatzerDuring the firefight on the bridge, after intense firing, one soldier reaches over to pull another soldier to get started down the bridge by grabbing the muzzle of his gun. That act would create severe burns on his palm.
- Zitate
Eriksson: This goddamn thing is turning us on our heads, Rowan. We're getting it backwards, man.
Rowan: 'Cause it's a day in, day out dose of bullshit, man, is what it is!
Eriksson: I mean just because each of us might at any second, be blown away, everybody's acting like we can do anything, man. And it don't matter what we do. But I think it's the other way 'round. Maybe the main thing is just the opposite. Because we might be dead in the next split second, maybe we gotta be extra careful what we do. Because maybe it matters more - Jesus, maybe it matters more than we even know.
- Crazy CreditsA mid-credits update is presented on Hatcher, explaining that his conviction was overturned.
- Alternative VersionenThe Extended Cut is 6 minutes longer than the original and contains 2 extra scenes.
- SoundtracksEverybody Loves Somebody
Written by Irving Taylor & Ken Lane
Top-Auswahl
Details
- Erscheinungsdatum
- Herkunftsland
- Sprachen
- Auch bekannt als
- Pecados de Guerra
- Drehorte
- Dolores Park, San Francisco, Kalifornien, USA(where Eriksson gets off the train at the end)
- Produktionsfirmen
- Weitere beteiligte Unternehmen bei IMDbPro anzeigen
Box Office
- Budget
- 22.500.000 $ (geschätzt)
- Bruttoertrag in den USA und Kanada
- 18.671.317 $
- Eröffnungswochenende in den USA und in Kanada
- 5.201.261 $
- 20. Aug. 1989
- Weltweiter Bruttoertrag
- 18.671.317 $
- Laufzeit
- 1 Std. 53 Min.(113 min)
- Farbe
- Seitenverhältnis
- 2.39 : 1