Hamburger Hill

No stars, no over the top heroics, no secret missions. Brutally realistic and historical accurate Nam film. One of the very few so far. One can nit-pick over the dialogue interludes throughout the film, but as with any story there has to be a set backdrop for characters to develop from. You have to know a little about these guys before you can really feel for them. It's a plot device but it works and takes nothing away from the film. Well done war films are a rarity, especially Vietnam era ones. This particular film is truly a good one. I would even consider it an excellent film for history students of the war and it's times. The last scene screams out in silence what every combat vet knows and feels.

I, like most of the other people posting comments, believe it is a very realistic movie. Some have commented that they didn't like the characters. Well, I'm a military helicopter pilot and I have worked with the infantry on many missions. When they are in the field, they are subject to a raw lifestyle that few would understand if they had not lived it. I've seen them and I've carried them. They do not apologize for the way they look, act or even smell when they,ve been out for days and weeks. When you see the complete fatigue in their faces, you would not expect them to. They are who they are and I'm proud to have carried them as a crew chief on a CH47 earlier in my career and now as a UH60 pilot. But the movie does need a "goof" link for some critical errors. The men who assaulted Dong Ap Bia "Hamburger Hill" were never attacked by a UH1. The fratricide events occurred 4 documented times. Once by a Skyraider (fixed-wing) and three separate times by AH1 Cobras. The Skyraider dropped, I believe a 1000 pound bomb and the Cobras shot them up with their machine guns and rockets. Having pointed this out, I do realize that the film industry, putting out a lower budget film, might have a difficult time actually finding a Cobra to use. Hueys are easy to find and cheap to operate. Also, the scenes with who is supposed to be Col. Honeycutt in the Command and Control helicopter (you never really see him)portrays him as completely out of harms way during the battles. The fact is that he was in harms way, with NVA artillery constantly. He and his staff also ended up in a fire fight themselves. The radio traffic also leads you to believe he is uncaring and dogmatic with his people. I could only answer this by pointing out that someone had to be the commander and it was a difficult mission. But, the "ruthless uncaring leader" (almost as a matter of political correctness) is the only way Hollywood will portray a commander in Viet Nam. Too bad though, that episode with his staff would have been interesting to have seen acted out. It doesn't change my opinion of the film though. It's one of my favorites in my DVD library.

Extremely brutal and fierce true story about one particular group in the 101 Airborne Division, who spend ten days and eleven battles trying to claim a muddy and well-occupied hill that's dubbed "Hamburger Hill".

The cast in this film were mostly unknown like Dylan McDermott (who made his film debut here) and Steven Weber who both play the platoon's two weary and determined sergeants, Don Cheadle is one of the five new recruits, Michael Boatman and Courtney Vance are also in the cast. It's certainly well-acted by McDermott and Vance..

John Irvin ("The Dogs of War") directed the film and here, he lets the emotions of the soldiers go very far but not too far and the same can be mentioned for the battle scenes. Also, Irvin take a page of Robert Aldrich's WW2 classic and unforgettable melodrama "The Dirty Dozen". Instead of making instant up close shots as Aldrich did, Irvin slowly moves the camera in and it captures the unpredictable feeling that any of the G.I.s have. I wasn't moved, yet I was amazed as well.

Jim Carabatos ("Heartbreak Ridge") wrote the movie's story and like Irvin, Carabatos is careful in making the tale absolutely clear and very understanding to the viewer. The point that Irvin and Carabatos are trying to make is fascinating and simple: No one here is trying to be the hero nor the villain because surviving the war is a more important factor than trying to be gutsy and wind up being killed.

"Hamburger Hill" isn't the type of war movie like Oliver Stone's "Platoon" or Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket" were, but it tends to be like Terrence Malick's "The Thin Red Line" was a few years ago. It's a fierce and very thoughtful film

In the mid-to-late '80s, America finally came to terms with the Vietnam War, exorcising their demons via popular culture. On TV, we had Vietnam veterans The A-Team coming to the rescue of the needy. On the radio, Paul Hardcastle told us that the average age was 'n-n-n-n-nineteen', while Stan Ridgeway recounted the story of an awfully big marine. In the cinemas, Chuck Norris was Missing In Action, Rambo asked 'Do we get to win this time?', Tom Cruise was Born on the Fourth of July, Robin Williams was screeching 'Good Morning', Michael J. Fox suffered the Casualties of War, and Kubrick's jacket was of the full metal variety. Oliver Stone's Vietnam film Platoon even cleaned up at the Oscars, winning four awards, including Best Picture.

It's understandable that Hamburger Hill, with its cast of relative unknowns and second-tier director, didn't receive quite as much attention as the aforementioned heavy-hitters, but if you're serious about war movies, don't let the lack of any big names put you off: the film is just as worthy of praise as Platoon, if not more-so, the green cast only adding to the film's already palpable authenticity. Shot in the thick jungles and even thicker mud of the Phillipines, the film tells of one of the most costly battles of the Vietnam War, the fight for Hill 937 in the Ashau Valley, known to grunts as Hamburger Hill. Director John Irvin's aim is to capture the horrors of war in all their bloody detail, and the sense of realism he achieves is remarkable: when his characters die, they don't throw their arms up in slow motion to the strains of Adagio for Strings… they do so in a sudden welter of gore, hammering home the notion that war is hell.

By the end of Hamburger Hill, the viewer is left as emotionally drained as its surviving characters are physically exhausted.

I was an infantryman in the field in Vietnam. There are only 2 Vietnam movies that are even close to real - this one and Apocalypse Now, and they are both as close as a movie can get.

Hamburger Hill gets it right in many ways, the banter among the grunts, the fatalism mixed with the desire to survive a vicious war, the emotional stress of seeing your fellow GI's become casualties. The GI jargon used in the writing is the most authentic in any movie about that war. But most of all it depicts the incredible, to me mystical, bravery which drives any man into terrible battle in any war, on any side. This movie is an unpretentious marvel.

As for Apocalypse Now, it gets it right in a very different way. Everything in that movie actually happened in Vietnam, crazy as each scene may be to one who wasn't there. Take it scene by scene. Believe everything you see. (Except, of course, the whole Col. Kurtz - private army - assassination theme, which was out of the book about war in South Africa. It made a great hook for this movie, but no U. S. Army senior officer ever went off the deep end like that.)