Por Amor e Honra

I enjoyed watching this entire movie.

Nothing like a romantic movie centered around one of the major wars we've had in the past.

I found this DVD in a bargain basket at a Walmart grocery store. Forget the politics for a few minutes. I'm a conservative, but I really don't think this movie was about the Vietnam War. It was about women as "muses." Muses are inspirations for artists and others.

The whole movie is based upon the concept of a special girl as the inspiration for a special soldier's courage. One loses it and one gains it. I like that.

Liam Hemsworth plays a cliché adequately. He's the ladies' man who thinks of himself as the leading man of every moment of life. But I like the way they paired a guy who has never committed to anything, with a guy (the other male lead)who has always been about commitment.

I totally get the fact that the other guy is in love with the small town girl he left months ago, but clearly she has changed dramatically. At first you ask yourself why he would continue to want a girl who has become such a daffy hippie. But you have to realize that he still thinks of her as who she was before.

There is some balance in terms of the portrayal of different cliché types of the 60s era. The hippies are exposed as posers and the soldiers as neither patriotic nor traitorous. They were just generic young dudes trying to survive, albeit the more conservative lead volunteered and had that honor code as part of his personality.

At first I didn't really understand why the Hemsworth guy would even like the blonde he meets. He's a soldier and she's just some stupid Leftist. But then I understood that he admired her commitment to anything, since had never been committed.

This is a low budget film with plenty of plot loopholes. Neither guy went to see his parents on leave from Vietnam in America. One guy falls "in love," in less than a week." There's a pristine lake for swimming and no one else is using it, except our lovebirds on a beautiful day.

There were more anti-Vietnam War statements than pro or neutral, so if that upsets you, you may want to stay away. But if you have patience, you may appreciate the theme of love inspiring soldiers.

The movie did not rely on a clichéd soundtrack of classic 60s songs. There may have been a few, but I don't remember any, so it could not have been too obnoxious.

Speaking as a Vietnam war veteran who arrived in Vietnam the same summer as the movie takes place (1969) and who went on R&R in 1970, I found "Love and Honor" to be terribly annoying and insulting in its blaring inaccuracies that indicate that the producers did not employ (or else didn't listen to) any form of technical advisor.

1: When going on R&R (or leave) from Vietnam, we traveled in civilian clothes, not in our jungle fatigues.

2: When in any form of uniform, we wore an insignia showing rank. Those in the Army (soldiers) in Vietnam wore small, black, metal rank insignias that the enemy could not see from a distance. The guys in "Love and Honor" are not wearing any rank insignias at all.

3: The movie touts "military travels free." That is only when traveling on a military plane or a military chartered plane when the individual has specific orders to fly. When flying commercial, we showed our (leave or PCS) orders and then got 50% off by flying "Space Available," meaning we may or may not be getting on the next flight or the flight after that or the flight after that. There is absolutely no way any military member could have been on R&R in Hong Kong and from there flown out - let alone fly all the way to and all the way back from some location in the continental United States. And if the two soldiers had had any plans to try that stupid move, they would have elected to take R&R in Honolulu, not Hong Kong.

4: In one scene the soldier tries go say hello to a "round eye" in the states and he gets the finger and a buzz off, baby killer. He mumbles "whatever happened to 'thank you for your service.'" "Thank you for your service" was not invented until the recent, Middle East wars. The first time I heard, "Thank you for your service" was in 2014, when somebody noticed that my car, parked on Fort Bragg, has a (North Carolina) Vietnam Veteran license plate. When we got back from Vietnam (between 1965 and 1973), at best, nobody mentioned our service in that war at all.

Review: I really wasn't a big fan of this movie. I found it quite corny and the acting wasn't anything special. It's predictable from the beginning to the end and the whole, leaving war for my girl thing became slightly tedious. It amazed me how these 2 soldiers go to some strangers house and spend all there time that they have on leave, without thinking about there parents or there other friends. I'm sure they had phones in those days. Anyway, the storyline was weak and the acting is pretty terrible, but for some unknown reason, you end up sticking with the movie, just to see what these teenagers are going to do with there life's. It's not a movie that I would recommend for entertainment but it's a watchable drama. Average!

Round-Up: Liam Hemsworth is definitely not in the same league as his bigger brother, Chris Hemsworth who has done a great job with Thor. Every movie that I have seen him in has been disappointing, which is due to the fact that he just hasn't got any screen charisma. I just hope that he finds his genre soon because all of his movies have seemed to have gone straight to DVD which is not a good start in an actors career. I've seen the girl who is playing the lead, Teresa Palmer, in other movies like I Am Four and Warm Bodies and she just seems to act the same. She looks very much like Kirsten Stewart who also has an emotionless way of acting. Anyway, this movie really needed someone to pick up the draggy storyline.

I recommend this movie to people who are into there drama/romance movies about a man who trying to get his girlfriend back on his leave from Vietnam. 3/10

This was actually a very good film. The first 15 minutes into it I thought to myself 'Oh boy, another cruddy movie bites the dust', but this film, in a very subtle way, comes into it's own and blossoms into an endearing story. A very well acted movie all around. I always like Teresa Palmer and I was very impressed with Liam Hemsworth as well. Liam reminds me of a young Val Kilmer in this film and I can ensure you that Hemsworth's career will continue to rise.

Furthermore, I have to give major props to the DP of this film. This is a film with a very limited budget, but the DP does a fantastic job with the quality of each shot. Pretty brilliant the way everything is shot in an 'interior' like style since the budget is low, very smart shooting in that close-up, interior shot style.

Lastly, this is a film that raises some questions about the Vietnam War, questions that have never been addressed in a Vietnam War film before (or at least any Vietnam war film I've seen). Pretty thought provoking. All in all, a film worth watching.