Pecados de Guerra

Casualties of War shows that war can be ugly for more than the obvious reasons. A great dramatic piece by Brian De Palma.

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.

Based on a true story, the arrogant sergeant (Sean Penn) of a 5-man squad on a reconnaissance mission in Vietnam in November, 1966, decides to kidnap a Vietnamese farm girl for some "portable R&R" because it would be "good for the morale of the squad." But PFC Eriksson (Michael J. Fox) refuses to participate and fears being "killed In Action" for dissenting.

"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+

War is bloody, it's dirty, it's ugly, it's a nightmare, but what happened in "Casualties of War" wasn't war even by the most hawkish definition.

Five men, led by Sargent Meserve (Sean Penn), went on a short mission and along the way they kidnapped, r*ped, and killed a young Vietnamese woman. Of the five only four partook in the sexual assault while Pfc Eriksson (Michael J. Fox) abstained. It's hard to say what was more depressing and more disturbing: the fact that a platoon of soldiers kidnapped, r*ped, and killed a woman, the fact that the two leaders coerced Diaz (John Leguizamo) to partake and tried to coerce Eriksson, or the fact that Eriksson told his superiors and they were almost angry he mentioned it. All of these facts are immensely disturbing and I can only imagine that if this one instance did come to light, how many others stayed in darkness?

Whether you believe these men did these acts because of the war or because of something within them irrespective of the war, it was still depravity. And I got the impression that depravity was normal and tacitly approved so long as the men were good soldiers. War is no place for a conscience. It's no place for morals, manners, ethics, religion, or right and wrong. It's a place of following orders and being a good soldier. And if r*ping an innocent woman along the way will help a man be a better soldier, then so be it. It would seem that the Army would take ten Sargent Meserves over one thousand Erikssons.

This same story told by a different soldier would have you believe that Eriksson was a treacherous soldier not to be trusted. He doesn't follow orders and he's a rat. Meserve wanted all of his guys to participate in the violation of the nameless Vietnamese woman because then he could trust them all. If they were all dirty then he'd know that they were all equally guilty and they were all in the crap together. But if one of them should abstain, such as Eriksson did, then now you have someone who's not a part of the team. But how far would you be willing to go to be a part of the "team?"

As a plot, as a production, and as far as performances; this was a quality movie. Sean Penn was masterfully despicable. He played his character so well I'm sure his own mother hated him. But as much of a quality movie this was, "Casualties of War" made me sick. I was sick with anger, disgust, disappointment, sadness. This was one hard movie to watch. Some movies are hard to watch because they are so bad, yet this one was hard to watch purely because of the content.

This happened. I can watch the movie or not watch the movie. It won't change a thing. This deplorable and immeasurably depraved act happened, so why not know the truth in all its ugliness as opposed to some sugar coated version to make us all feel good about the Vietnam War and our soldiers? I think we owe it to ourselves and to the nameless faceless Vietnamese that were killed for no reason.

`Casualties of War' belongs to the same year as that other anti-war film `Born on the Fourth of July'. From about the mid-eighties American feeling rose bitterly against the aftermath of the Viet Nam war: the price had been too high. Too many young men killed or wounded and, worse perhaps, too many young men psychologically scarred for the rest of their lives. `Casualties of War' does not point any accusing fingers at anyone: the film is an anguishing account of a horrendous series of actions based on real facts. Even so, our interpretation must go a little beyond what the film tells us, what we are seeing. We must ask how many more service-men lost their nerve in the middle of that jungle inferno which was Viet Nam?

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?

Although Platoon may have gotten more acclaim, by far the best film on the Vietnam War is this one. Casualties Of War is going to leave Platoon way in the dust when history has its verdict.

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.