A different way of telling a story

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Few films have managed to capture the horrors of the Vietnam War as accurately as Hamburger Hill in terms of real history. Inspired by an actual battle that in many aspects typifies the entire conflict, John Irvin brings to life the brutal realities of combat. Carefully weaving in social commentary while at the same time not shying away from gruelling scenes of battle, this film stands above many others in its genre.

The movie Hamburger Hill is based on a real battle in 1969. It's one of the few Vietnam War movies to portray the soldiers in a realistic and accurate way. Most of the others fail to do justice for the brave men who fought there.Rather than stereotyping soldiers as either druggies or genocidal redneck maniacs (as we see in movies like Platoon), this one portrays the troops as what they were: just ordinary, average men trying to do a very difficult and demanding job. More than any other movie about Vietnam, this one shows the misery that the men were going through, not only in battle, but due to the unfairly negative image of the Vietnam troops the American media was creating at that time.

Other reviewers have noted how this film got lost in the slipstream of Platoon and Full Metal Jacket, unfairly. I fully endorse this view. It is gritty, honest and superbly well acted. It circumvents war movie cliché; no metaphorical arrows pointing at heads saying "he's dead meat". No "star power" to guarantee survival in the final frame. No sugar coating relations between the black soldiers and the white guys. The combat is nasty, brutal and honest. And - hooray - officers, especially junior officers, are not portrayed as out-of-touch and incompetent. As a former soldier myself, the bookending of the film with radio calls is very telling. Especially at the end. Hisssss.... I'm British, but knew a veteran of the real battle, a librarian conscripted. He said he could not watch it without tears in his eyes in places.

i must say... I didn't care for it.I thought the writing was weak and cliché, tried to hard to be a Vietnam film instead of allowing it to become one (if that makes sense) i thought the acting was poor and the special effects (even for 1987) were amateurish. not one character sold me. I don't miss too many war movies...and this one had a good reputation, but im not sure where it came from.to say it was the best Vietnam war movie ever, really takes away from some great films. maybe i went in expecting too much because of the reputation this film has, but i left disappointed