Guerra de Mentiras

I liked this motion picture. The work done in preparation and the use of documentary style presentation was effective, and gave the movie and story credibility. The acting was good. The part of Mary Jane was especially good, given the limited amount of screen time. Amy Madigan seems to have a knack to play the angry housewife/mother. She is GOOD at it. Just enough, not too much, just right! Bill Paxton did a believable job as lead character. The story itself is one that needs to be told over and over again, until the American people get the message of truth and LIES surrounding Viet Nam.

For a TV Movie, this film was good. The film didn't look amateurish and the overall quality was generally very good. One scene that especially stood out was when Bill Paxton rushed to the village only to see it get destroyed. However, this movie could have been much better. The most critical error of this movie is that it tries to cover too many elements and ultimately fails to fully address them to any satisfying extent. It lacked focus. There were a lot of good ideas, such as the hidden propaganda, the conflict of war strategy of various people, the familial problems, to the questionable moral and ethical values of the main character..., but most of them were dealt with not more than a dozen lines! In short, this movie needed to be more developed and needed another revision before it was released.

While not in the same league as Go Tell The Spartans, which had the presence of Burt Lancaster if nothing else, this is a commendable effort to bring a huge and impressive piece of non-fiction to the screen.

Never shown in the cinema in the UK, my wife and I saw it on imported DVD. She was very impressed (having not read the book) and thought it conveyed something of the complexity of the subject very well and was very enlightening.

I had received the book and DVD for Christmas last year. Being ignorant on much of the Vietnam War, I decided to read the book to see if I could apply anything to the Iraq situation. My brother told me to watch the DVD first because if I read the book first, the movie would be a huge disappointment. I read about 3/4 of the book and then watched the movie. Needless to say, the movie was a disappointment.

It tries to cover way too much in a short period of time. Bill Paxton is OK as Vann but every scene is way to short. Several characters are composite characters rather than the actual person. Donal Logue appears to be a composite of David Halberstam and Neil Sheehan. Eric Bogohosian is completely miscast as a composite of Doug Ramsey and Daniel Ellsberg (I think they call him Doug Elders in the movie).

The beauty of the book is the detail that it has. There's about 100 pages on Vann's 1962 stint and how he became completely frustrated with the American leadership in the war. There's about 100 pages on the history of Vietnam. There are about 100 pages on the Battle of Ap Bac and the fallout. The book weaves Vann's life in and out of the story of the Vietnam War. The movie makes Vann the centerpiece, so it becomes very difficult to get the background information and non-Vann information that one needs to understand Vann and the war. How could you do that in two hours?

This movie may have low budget production values, but they did a fairly good job. Actual wartime footage is intermingled for good effect, especially in the opening sequence.

I had a bit of a hard time taking Bill Paxton serious in this role at first, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that he did a very credible job portraying Lt. Col Vann with the required swagger.

Though a bit over dramatic at times, and almost falling into cliché, I would have to recommend this movie. My only other criticism would be of the portrayal of the ARVN when under fire. The offices may have been beneath contempt, but when called to duty, the ARVN could mix it up with the best of them. They have been getting an unfair reputation for many years now.