Rain

I'd say a fairly good movie, on a fairly good script, with a small cast of fairly good, fairly unknown actors. Just didn't seem "great" in any way, but it does relate to a side of the Vietnam war that most people aren't aware of. The statistic given was that 4500 dogs served in the war. I certainly was not aware of this, or in what capacity they were used. I found the movie worthwhile for the telling of this story.

Didn't know about the "Animal Planet" production, but anyone expecting this to be a "nice doggie" movie for the whole family should note that it still feels like a war movie with a dog, rather than a dog movie with a war. Considerable suspense and some action, but no extremely violent scenes. But the "little girl with dog" scenes that start the movie aren't typical of the rest of it. (Which may be a good thing).

The "love story" does seem a bit contrived and artificial, but it did provide a break from the "military guys fighting / military guys talking with other military guys" which otherwise would make up the majority of the movie.

Incidentally, I did notice a "military content advisor" on the credits, and quite a few military agencies given thanks, so I'm not sure what was going on with the weapons inconsistencies that another reviewer mentioned, but I'm no expert on these so I would never have noticed.

Gave it a 6.

I started watching this film late at night and despite the awful acting and sickeningly heart-rending story-line, I had to watch to the end to see what happened. Rain turns in the best performance out of all the actors, especially in the "overcoming his fear of water" scene, and has no doubt gone on to better things since this film. It was weird though that it was such compelling viewing.

Unfortunately the end was nauseatingly happy.

Compared to most dog films this was great. The dog itself carried the film. As for the girl, I think she would have risked it to help Rain without being asked. The industry is crying out for a movie featuring a dog to equal the horse in "War Horse". At the start of the film the dog seems very docile, a family dog, unsuitable for war but yes dogs can be trained. As 4,500 dogs were sent out to Nam one must assume that indeed great bravery was shown by the dogs. Just as wars have improved health care for human veterans (although many later become neglected) I wonder how much medical care dogs get in the military. I know of at least one veterinarian in the UK uses his own intelligence and new "war injury" technology to get animals with serious leg and spine problems, to walk again. The tragedy is that 5 million healthy young dogs are euthanized every year in the USA because dogs and puppies are abandoned.

This movie isn't a big budget picture, big budget Apocalypse Now wasn't needed. Good old fashion story of Boy and his Dog or in this case a Soldier and his dog. There are some parts that may make sensitive people misty. Looked like they were walking through the MASH lot. This is basically a good story that takes place in Vietnam. Closed-minded people who don't trust a dog's instinct alone vs. those who have trust in the loyal companion.

It is a good change to see a war movie which depicts an aspect of the war which is rarely talked or heard about. Rather than show full-blown action sequences with gung-ho soldiers ready to give it to the enemy, we see a side of the war that shows that it is not only humans that face the prospect of sacrificing their lives for a particular cause.

Before this film I had no idea that dogs played such a large role in what was the longest war to have been fought in the 20th century. Of the 4,500 German shepherds that travelled to Vietnam only 1 in 10 survived to return home. A fact which is very duanting I agree.

The delivery of the story was very poor however. As much as the director tried to be original in depicting how he would have seen the war we see many stereotypes brought out in a very cheap sense with your "hard-core" group of soldiers which found it hard to accept Rain's help early in the film which ended up with the "oh I owe my life to that dog" type of relationship.

The production company could have also made a bigger effort in using actual weapons and equipment that were actually used in the time. The rifles used by the soldiers for example was the "M16A2" (first issued to American troops in 1985)is actually an upgraded version of the original "M16A1" used during the Vietnam war. The helicopters used during the Vietnam war were of course the Bell UH-1 helicopter, not the Bell 206- B3 as shown in the movie because it was designed primarily for civilian use not military.

But I guess the movie could have been worst had they not salvaged it by adding that typical "war-time romance" into the story to give the movie some sort of lift (not much of it though).

Overall a 2/5 stars from me.