Welcome Home Soldier Boys

Discharged soldiers, just back from Viet Nam, decide to drive across country and see the nation they protected. The country doesn't want to see them, and after being hustled by a hooker, their car breaks down in a small town that doesn't treat them well. Their revenge makes Rambo's look like gentile tea party.

One of the many angry vet goes nuts films that popped up through the 1970's. Despite the fact that 20th Century Fox released this this is pure drive-in fodder. The film isn't really that good, but is made watchable and memorable by the total destruction of the town. Personally everyone had it coming on all sides, except the audience who has to wait an hour through bad acting to get to the good stuff. Containing what is probably the single worst performance of Joe Don Baker (Mitchell) this is the sort of movie that makes you really wonder how he was ever considered a star and leads you to the inescapable conclusion that Baker is rightly the punchline of jokes. I say this as someone who likes him as an actor.

If you get to see this just watch the end, where the mismatched gun shots (how many different noises can a single machine gun make?) make this worth seeing.

The entire time whilst I was watching "Welcome Home, Soldier Boys" I couldn't help thinking about the lyrics to Paul Hardcastle's song "Nineteen". Okay, admittedly the song itself is a typically cheesy 80's electro-pop song, but the lyrics are quite thought provoking and fully relate to the harshly downbeat and depressing subject matter of this obscure early 70's drama gem. In fact, the song lyrics are so infallible that simply copy-pasting them would accurately correspond with the synopsis of the film.

There's a voice-over in the song, allegedly from a newsreader, stating: "the Vietnam vet often arrived home within 48 hours after jungle combat. Perhaps the most dramatic difference between World War II and Vietnam was coming home. None of them received a hero's welcome". This statement marvelously illustrates about half of the film. The intro and opening credits depict how a military bus drops four Vietnam buddies (Danny, Shooter, Fatback and The Kid) in a random little US town without much further ado. They purchase a ramshackle car and drive halfway across the country, passing through Danny's hometown of Foley, to their end destination California where they hope to breed cattle together. In the vast majority of sequences where these four ex-soldiers are confronted with US citizens, you can literally notice how they're nearly begging for a sign of respect or appreciation, but never get any. There's a significant scene in which Danny attends a high school basketball game in his hometown and meets his former friends again for the first time in over five years, and even though he clearly hangs around them hoping to begin a conversation, they completely avoid the subject of his army service. Quite the contrary, when in a bar with older men, the four receive rude criticism on how soldiers fighting the Korean War used to be a lot more devoted and loyal to each other.

Back to the lyrics of the "Nineteen" song. The same voice-over also states the following: "Half of the Vietnam combat veterans suffered from what psychiatrists call Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder. Many vets complain of alienation, rage or guilt. Hundreds of Thousands of men who saw heavy combat in Vietnam were arrested since discharge. Their arrest rate is almost twice that of non-veterans of the same age. Well, there you pretty much have the other half of "Welcome Home, Soldier Boys". As soon as they are on the road, the foursome reverts to crime. They pick up a girl and leave her for dead by the side of the road, they extort people and provoke fights and the during the infamous climax – for which the film gained somewhat of a cult reputation – the veterans completely go insane, destroy an entire village and kill the inhabitants. It comes across as if, due to their service in Vietnam and the lack of guidance afterwards, these men really lost their grip on reality, their moral values and self-control.

Just because of the gloomy themes and content, "Welcome Home, Soldier Boys" is a very difficult film to rate and especially recommend to others. The film is incredibly slow-paced, with sometimes exaggeratedly overlong sequences and story lines that seem to head nowhere. This falsely raises the impression that this is a boring film while it's not … really. The melancholy and bitterness is essential and extra emphasized through the mournful country music soundtrack, sober photography and introvert acting performances. Unique film, just don't expect rough Vietnam veteran action from start to finish. For more crazed 'Nam movies, check out "Rolling Thunder", "My Friends Need Killing", "Combat Shock", "Born for Hell", "Open Season" and "The Park is Mine"

I see much praise being given to the movie for multiple reasons, most of which I agree with. I did enjoy Angelsunchanied review which covers the major points.

The reception many returning vets recieved varied and for multiple reasons.

Many of the difficulties vets go thru returning to civilian life is also protrayed.

I enjoyed the acting and performances overall but I take issue that professionally trained Green Berets, not one or 2 but 4 would react as they did, especially at the end. Rangers or Grunts maybe.

A bus dumps our returning veterans back into the United States while country & western plays. Joe Don Baker channels Elvis Presley with his puffy-eyed, thick-lipped pouting, while their homecoming falls apart around them. A Cadillac is procured. A road trip out west is on the itinerary, where dreams await. At every stop along the way, something happens to dampen the enthusiasm of the returning heroes. Locals cheat them at every turn and grumble about the war. "Back when we fought a war, we didn't come home til the war was over!" growls a gang of grumpy Korean War Vets while Joe Don Baker does the slow burn.Things come to a head during a stop in New Mexico when our boys take all the crap they can swallow and explode in a killing frenzy.Rambo and Rolling Thunder were soon to follow...

"Welcome Home, Soldier Boys" is a fun movie if you check your mind at the door. I saw the film in a cheap Tokyo theater while attending Sophia University on G.I. Bill payments I had earned through 4 years in the air force including one year in Vietnam. With "Welcome Home Soldier Boys" the viewer rides along with four Vietnam vets who buy a large touring car (a black Cadillac, if I remember correctly) as they drive east after being discharged on the West Coast. Within a few hours they pick up a female hitch-hiker and have sex with her in the back seat of the rambling car. They offer her something like two hundred dollars but she intends to extort A LOT more than that out of them since, as she points out, they have just transported her over a state line which makes their activities a felony. An argument ensues, followed by an altercation that accidentally results in the young lady falling out of the car at 65 miles per hour. "What do you think?" one of them asks Joe Don Baker, the still recognized ranking man. "I think she should have taken the two hundred dollars." Interrupted by a few pleasant moments, a series of disappointments and frustrations gradually eats away at the patience of the four Vietnam vets. The last straw is when they run out of gasoline in a small town. What happens next makes the wrath of Rambo against the small Oregon town look like a model of restraint.