Faith of My Fathers

This story is a great tribute to those who withstood the horror of being a prisoner of war not only during the Vietnam War, but any conflict. I knew of Senator McCain's story at the time for I was 21 years old when he was released, but did not know the whole story until now. The young man who portrays McCain, Shawn Hatosy, is riveting, he catches every emotion the senator must have gone through during those five years. You can see the touching relationship he had with his career-navy father was the strength he drew from in the years he was imprisoned. It makes you think....how can another human be so utterly unfeeling to another human to think nothing of inflicting such torture and pain. I know the recent photos of our own military inflicting horrible torture upon others makes me see that any human can be inhuman, that it doesn't matter who you are or what country you were brought up in. But that is no excuse and you can see that in this story of how one man stood high and above his captors and never lost his respect for himself or the other prisoners there with him. God bless John McCain.

FAITH OF MY FATHERS tells the true story of John McCain's military service, capture, and imprisonment in Vietnam during the Vietnam war. Nearly all of this made-for-TV movie is shot with a hand-held camera bringing the drama in close and making it personal. The pacing is fine, although the commercial breaks tended to disrupt more than average. The acting was the highlight of this production. The unknown actor playing John McCain really captures his essence. About the only thing that did not work in FAITH OF MY FATHERS was the shower peeping scene. It was out of place and did not advance the story.

Interestingly, the conflict in FAITH OF MY FATHER -- Vietnam communists captors versus the American prisoners of war -- no longer holds water as Vietnam today is mostly known as being Asia's new shining tourist destination. All of the torture inflicted upon John McCain and his fellow servicemen was ultimately for naught. The heroic resistance of the American prisoners was also pointless.

As John McCain may run for President again, the war crimes depicted in FAITH OF MY FATHER connects to today's Iraqi prisoner abuse. Would a President John McCain, a torture victim of the Vietnam War, approve of the proxy torture and trained rape canines currently used against today's Iraqi war prisoners?

FAITH OF MY FATHER is a fitting companion piece to 1987's HANOI HILTON -- another drama focusing on the daily suffering, torture, and brutal treatment the American P.O.W.s in North Vietnam's Hoa Lo Prison. If I am not mistaken, John McCain was a technical adviser to HANOI HILTON. Very interesting.

I wasn't surprised but yet surprised by the treatment that Senator McCain received during his 5 yrs as POW. I thought the movie was rather moving in the fact on how the military can prepare ones own mentality to "hold on" to survival and to fight that of brainwashing tactics. I was surprised however to question why the Vietnamese just didn't shoot him and the rest of the POW's......why didn't he leave when given a chance? I believe that there should have been more movies out like this shortly after they ended "the conflict" to show the American people more in-depth of the treatment of our herons. With this said, it would of, I believe, been more opened, understanding and welcoming arms reached out to our herons coming home. I thank everyone of them every day in prayer :-)

This movie covers the period time Sen. John McCain spent as a POW at the Hanoi Hilton during the Vietnam war. For those of you who enjoyed this movie but have not read the book I would strongly encourage you to do so.

For those of you who have read the book and felt a little unsatisfied with the movie, I feel the same. Unless I missed it they left out Hanoi Jane's visit to the camp which is totally unacceptable. Also, McCain's theft of another persons washrag was not part of the movie.

I'm glad a movie was made from this great book, but as is often the case, the movie is substantially inferior to the book.

Many of the reviewers of this film have, I believe, reviewed it with the typical Gung ho way of looking at everything! Just because an American fights in a war doesn't make the biographical story, book or film, any good. This to me was scored high and favoured purely on the position of misplaced, dishonest sentiment. The film was not about whether of not he was a good as a man, a serving airman or even as an officer. It was about how the prison story was told on screen! They can't even be honest enough to admit that the film failed miserably. Apart from Shawn Hatosy playing his role superbly, the lack of substance, insight, the real life emissions deliberately left out of the final result, all left the viewer with no story to his background! This is a bio that told the viewer nothing whatsoever. All we get is a 1hr:30min film about him being beaten and tortured. It was just repetition and the film could have been 15 or 20 minutes long at the very most.

I have seen much better biographical film story's of well known people/celebrities etc; that told you how they were feeling, what made them strong enough to resist admitting to BS war crimes! Many Vietnam veterans who were P. O. W's received insanely cruel treatment from the barbaric uneducated Vietcong and N. V. A. Troops but many did not crack. One reviewer mentions that the director deliberately skips/emits anything that could be construed as negative; they actually say the McCain committed treason by his false admission of guilt against the Vietnamese people (I am not certain if it is seen as treason by the military but, it was most definitely swept under the rug forever). I have no idea if his auto biography is written with absolute truthful detail, much more explanatory insight and without embellishment of any kind.

Three stars for Hatosy and his acting (even though he did not have much of an expansive dialogue to say) and, a -3 score for a uselessly shallow film!