Barnes & Noble

An unapologetically patriotic movie that found post-9/11 audiences receptive, We Were Soldiers revisits American involvement in Vietnam and focuses on one particularly harrowing engagement. Based on the memoir by retired army officer Harold G. Moore and war correspondent Joseph Galloway, this engrossing, highly emotional film re-creates the 1965 battle that pitted the airborne division of the U.S. Army’s 7th Cavalry against deeply entrenched Vietnamese in an unpopulated area that became known as "the valley of death." Mel Gibson portrays Moore as a dedicated career officer with a paternal devotion to the men under his command. Ferried by helicopter to the battle zone, Moore, grizzled Sgt. Maj. Basil Plumley (an amusingly deadpan Sam Elliott), and his inexperienced young soldiers attempt to seize disputed ground but are immediately besieged by all-but-invisible enemy troops. Randall Wallace, who previously collaborated with Gibson on Braveheart, makes his initial foray into screen directing with no hint of uncertainty; his staging of the siege, while hewing closely to the historical record, is fiercely visceral and almost unendurably suspenseful. He’s equally facile in dramatizing the tension and anguish felt by the soldiers’ wives, waiting at their Stateside homes for news but dreading its arrival. Madeleine Stowe is appropriately stoic as Moore’s capable mate, who takes it upon herself to personally notify the camp spouses of their husbands’ deaths in battle. Chris Klein shows his mature side as a promising young officer who serves with distinction in his first major campaign, and Barry Pepper registers strongly as Galloway, a war correspondent overwhelmed by the carnage. Greg Kinnear delivers what may be his finest performance to date as the tireless helicopter pilot who shuttles dead and wounded soldiers from the battleground back to the base. Wallace depicts Moore and his men with an admiration bordering on reverence, but he also portrays the Vietnamese with respect and dignity. He refrains from editorializing about the U.S. role in the conflict, choosing instead to dramatize the American soldiers’ loyalty to each other. A moving testament to the futility -- and absurdity -- of war, We Were Soldiers pays tribute to those who fight so gallantly and sacrifice so much. On the DVD, Wallace provides commentary for both the full-length film and ten deleted scenes; he also appears in a behind-the-scenes featurette, "Getting It Right." Ed Hulse

All Movie Guide

Screenwriter Randall Wallace, a specialist in sweeping historical epics, steps behind the camera for We Were Soldiers, a fact-based Vietnam War drama that reunites him with his Braveheart (1995) star Mel Gibson. Gibson is Lt. Col. Hal Moore, commander of the First Battalion, Seventh Cavalry, the same regiment fatefully led by George Armstrong Custer. As part of the Pleiku Campaign of late 1965, Moore is assigned to an action at Landing Zone X-Ray in the Drang Valley, an area that would come to be known as the "The Valley of Death." Moore soon finds himself and his men contained to an area about the size of a football field, surrounded by more than 2,000 enemy troops and engaged in the first major battle of the war. Heroism becomes the order of the day as men like Moore, chopper pilot Bruce Crandall (Greg Kinnear), and Lt. Henry Herrick (Marc Blucas) refuse to yield, in spite of heavy losses of life. The film co-stars Madeleine Stowe, Chris Klein, Keri Russell, and Sam Elliott. We Were Soldiers is based on the book We Were Soldiers Once...and Young by Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore (retired) and UPI reporter Joe Galloway (played in the film by Barry Pepper). Karl Williams

New York Times

Like the best war movies -- and like martial literature going back to the Iliad -- it balances the dreadful, unassuageable cruelty of warfare and the valor and decency of those who fight. A.O. Scott

Boston Globe

As in Black Hawk Down, the combat sequences are filmed with great skill and pulse-pounding immediacy. Jay Carr

San Francisco Chronicle

...one of the best war movies of the past 20 years. Mick LaSalle

USA Today

...the first film in recent memory that a major studio has chosen to release early in the year with palpable filmmaking passion and production heft. Mike Clark

Product Details

• UPC: 097363400240
• Source: PARAMOUNT
• Region Code: 1
• Presentation: Wide Screen
• Sound: Dolby Surround, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
• Language: English, Français
• Subtitles: English
• Time: 2:18:00
• Sales Rank: 1,433

This DVD is also available as part of a box set:

• Payback/We Were Soldiers
• Payback/We Were Soldiers

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