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Hamburger Hill by John Irvin (1987)

10 June 2008

Strange that for a guy who enjoys war movies, and specifically Vietnam films I had never seen this film, but that is the case. So I finally decided to pick it up, and while it may no be as pollished as Platoon, or Apocalypse Now, it is still a brutal and honest film about the horrors inflicted on our enlisted men in this war that we should never have been fighting. This is an enemble piece about a unit in the battle for Hamburger Hill which suffered unbelievable casualties fighting to take this one hill. The film is about an actual assault made by the US Army’s 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment on a well fortified bunker system on Ap Bia Mountainin Vietnam, and the companies repeated attempts to take the position and all the casualties the unit suffered. The film is enjoyable, though certainly not one of the best films I have seen, possibly because no one person really shines here, which brings the film down a bit, but the film still does succeed in showing the brutality of this war. It is a bit strange, because it is more like a bunch of vignettes dealign with this unit and it trying to take this hill than an overall cohesive story, and the film does suffer from that, but is still worth seeing.

The film starts with the end of an assault in the A Shau Valley, and Sgt. Frantz (Dylan McDermott) is wounded and taken out by Helicopter with other wounded, as the unit retreats back to base. Frantz returns to his unit, and is put in charger of a bunch of raw recruits including Washburn (Don Cheedle in one of his early roles), who he has to try and train up quickly because they all feat they will be returning to A Shau. The soldiers fight each other, and go to whore houses, and rail on their conditions, and the inevitable happens and they are sent back to A Shau valley to take the hill that will be known as Hamburger hill for the amount of men wounded and killed.

Once the assualt begins things get really brutal with men dieing left and right. There is US Helicopter Attack that attacks the GI’s instead of the VC, and we see a lot of good men die including the kindly Doc (Courtney B. Vance).

Finally of course the soldiers persevere and mange to take the hill, but at a very heavy cost, and even Frantz’s best friend has died in his arms, and the lietenant died hiding in a foxhole. A brutal death toll to take a hill.

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A decent enough war film, certainly not the best war film I have seen, but not the worst and it does do a good job of showcasing the brutality of war.

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