Rating: R
Genre:
War
Theatrical Release: 03/01/2002(USA)
Release Date: 01/23/2007
SubTitles: English
Run Time: 138 Minutes
Flags: Graphic Violence, Adult Language, War Violence
Distributor/Studio: Paramount
Screenwriter
Randall Wallace, a specialist in sweeping
historical epics, steps behind the camera for this 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, All Movie Guide
;)
