Welcome to another edition of Adam's Reviews!! Queue in intro music**
Today movie review is the war drama Courage Under Fire (1996) set during the Gulf War starring Meg Ryan, a fallen Captain Karen Walden and my man Denzel Washington as Lt. Colonel Nat Sterling, who is investigating whether a posthumous medal of honour is to be presented to Ryan's character given she may have sacrificed for her squad and for her country. Throughout the film Denzel's character pieces through the puzzles as to what happened the Ryan and her squad by interviewing the survivors of the mission and each member provide their take of a different story which obviously doesn't match up. At the same time we also learn the Denzel is suffering guilt of his own actions prior to the investigation of a night attach where he gave an order which ended up as "friendly fire" resulting in the death of his own men.
The survivors includes the skinny as medic Ilario (Mr Matt Jason Bourne Damon himself), who portrays the incident of as heroic antic by the deceased Captain and another by the stereotypical macho solder Monfriez (Young Guns alum Lou Diamond Phillips) who portrays the Captain as a coward. Meanwhile Denzel's character is drowning his guilt in alcohol, keeping away from his wife and kids and avoiding a Washington Post reporter who believes there was a cover up of the friendly fire. Denzel's character avoidance of what happened leads to him finding the truth of what happened with Ryan and her squad which becomes an obsession and is somehow tied to his own redemption. Unable to tolerate the cover-up of his own error, he puts his career on the line to prevent another cover-up.
Director Edward Zwick cleverly uses the "Rashomon Effect" where the same even is given contradictory interpretations by different individuals involved until the truth is revealed in the end. The movie is interesting where it is rare to find a film dealing with women in combat which deals with personal issues such as post-traumatic stress disorder and the correlation of the decisions made by a man who is leading his squad in war to a woman leading his squad in war while also comparing the squads behaviour of the decisions made. The movie itself films like a day time movie you can watch once and find it entertaining in some way where you acknowledge soldiers can made terrible decisions too, we are all humans but the movie contradicts itself by honouring the military, such as the melodramatic ending. It fails to comment on the dehumanising nature of war. Another issue I had was the miscast of Ryan, the film early on describes her as a Texan butch... her performance was good which included shouting orders with an interesting accent but ultimately couldn't see her in that role. Shout out to the uneasy interview between Washington and Damon, greatly staged and acted.
Overall 6.6.
Today movie review is the war drama Courage Under Fire (1996) set during the Gulf War starring Meg Ryan, a fallen Captain Karen Walden and my man Denzel Washington as Lt. Colonel Nat Sterling, who is investigating whether a posthumous medal of honour is to be presented to Ryan's character given she may have sacrificed for her squad and for her country. Throughout the film Denzel's character pieces through the puzzles as to what happened the Ryan and her squad by interviewing the survivors of the mission and each member provide their take of a different story which obviously doesn't match up. At the same time we also learn the Denzel is suffering guilt of his own actions prior to the investigation of a night attach where he gave an order which ended up as "friendly fire" resulting in the death of his own men.
The survivors includes the skinny as medic Ilario (Mr Matt Jason Bourne Damon himself), who portrays the incident of as heroic antic by the deceased Captain and another by the stereotypical macho solder Monfriez (Young Guns alum Lou Diamond Phillips) who portrays the Captain as a coward. Meanwhile Denzel's character is drowning his guilt in alcohol, keeping away from his wife and kids and avoiding a Washington Post reporter who believes there was a cover up of the friendly fire. Denzel's character avoidance of what happened leads to him finding the truth of what happened with Ryan and her squad which becomes an obsession and is somehow tied to his own redemption. Unable to tolerate the cover-up of his own error, he puts his career on the line to prevent another cover-up.
Director Edward Zwick cleverly uses the "Rashomon Effect" where the same even is given contradictory interpretations by different individuals involved until the truth is revealed in the end. The movie is interesting where it is rare to find a film dealing with women in combat which deals with personal issues such as post-traumatic stress disorder and the correlation of the decisions made by a man who is leading his squad in war to a woman leading his squad in war while also comparing the squads behaviour of the decisions made. The movie itself films like a day time movie you can watch once and find it entertaining in some way where you acknowledge soldiers can made terrible decisions too, we are all humans but the movie contradicts itself by honouring the military, such as the melodramatic ending. It fails to comment on the dehumanising nature of war. Another issue I had was the miscast of Ryan, the film early on describes her as a Texan butch... her performance was good which included shouting orders with an interesting accent but ultimately couldn't see her in that role. Shout out to the uneasy interview between Washington and Damon, greatly staged and acted.
Overall 6.6.