A Bright Shining Lie

The movie showed it like it really was. I did not know Vann, but two Colonels that I know did work with him. It shows who really ran the war in Vietnam. It shows Westmoreland for what he was too. The best part is that it shows how the Military had little or no say in conducting the war. It lets us see that it was a political war and that maybe it could have had a different outcome if it had been pursued correctly. The action is good, and it is authentic. Paxton is intense. His performance is often complimented on that he could have actually been Vann. Or that he could actually have been in a war. TYhe battle sequences are realistic without being overly bloody. The dialog was well presented and was mostly believable.

However, all hands do a credible job and it's worth watching. However, like most movies about Vietnam, it depressed me: the tragedy & the waste are almost overwhelming!

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.