While watching this movie I was reminded of a story involving a American pilot flying over the south of Japan on a bombing run.
He'd go on mission after mission dropping God knows how many incendiary explosives onto various Air Force bases, cities and Villages all over the greater Japanese empire.
But one day he stepped out of his craft and couldn't help but notice the faint smell of burning flesh that had seared on to the bottom of this plane as one of his bombing runs have gotten lower to the ground than usual.
He became sickened by this experience and was unable for a time (if not completely) to go on another bombing run with the reality of his actions finally caught up with him.It wasn't just a matter of dropping bombs on the target but it became a matter of dropping bombs on real life people something that had become disconnected for him as he was so far removed from the action.
Well that's what this film reminds me of.
Gene Hackman plays this special navigation officer; a lieutenant colonel who takes it upon himself to go in an observation plane to scout out a location over a certain chunk of Vietnam that needs to be carpet-bombed in the foreseeable future to stop some sort of military engagement.
But his plane is shot down and he finds himself stuck several miles behind enemy lines.
Danny Glover plays a pilot who's sent in to investigate the area and report on the whereabouts of Gene Hackman's character and the other man who unfortunately didn't survive the Embargo.
As the film progresses Gene Hackman and Danny Glover's characters will communicate with each other, on and off several times becoming almost casual with each other as they try to accomplish their final objective of getting Gene Hackman's character out of the situation before the carpet bombing raids completely destroy the area or before he gets captured by the Vietnamese Army which has become a top priority for them as they know with his importance for U.S. strategic strategy.
As the film progresses Gene Hackman's character finds himself less and less able to engage in the enemy whenever given the opportunity and becomes disgusted by the whole thing as he has to confront the realities of War from the ground level.
Danny Glover's character finds himself morally and physically worn down as he's being overworked and overpressure to buy not just his normal job but his new assignment having to find Gene Hackman's character with in the jungle.
Escalating to such a point that he eventually steals a helicopter to fly into the jungle himself to try and rescue Gene Hackman's character as the rest of the military gave up on Rescue efforts after a botched extraction Mission.
All of this culminates in a giant map on battle and where are main characters barely survive the bombardment and all the enemies chasing them are utterly destroyed.
It's a fairly standard military action film and it feels a lot more positive towards Vietnam than some of its counterparts like platoon but it still has its occasional moment of humanity and it doesn't try to show the American Army as pure and Noble.
though it's still firmly on their side. We do get a shot later on we're Gene Hackman's character encounters this young Vietnamese kid walking across the bridge who stops him from walking into a trap and then gives him his hat because it's raining.
It's one of those little Humanity shots you see in military films all the time and I love them for the most part. But I always wonder was seems like this especially in movies based on Vietnam.
Now would Americans react if the situation was flipped. Say you had a movie where a Russian, Chinese or a Canadian guy who was part of an invading Army in the US and he's walking in let's say Kansas City.
A small American Boy stops to help him out and then gives him some sort of gift as a sign of Goodwill towards the stranger despite them being technical enemies.
How would your typical American viewer respond to that scene. Something tells me that be a lot of debate end squabble over something like that and yet they put these kind of scenes in their movies all the time without ever considering the other side.
Apparently this movie was based off of a real life rescue operation involving a guy who did get stranded several miles behind North Vietnamese lines and he was rescued but supposedly a lot of the film is dramatised and they throw in a lot more action than what it was actually there.
The movie isn't trying to be a historical drama or even trying to recreate any sort of real event I'm not too bothered by it.
As a movie it's fairly enjoyable, it's got solid enough characters despite their Limited engagement and the whole thing moves along pretty well.
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