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Tuesday, January 23, 2024

BAT*21 (1988)

A fact-inspired Vietnam War rescue story of uncommon interest; not for the film itself, a perfectly decent, by-the-numbers effort from journeyman tv director Peter Markle in a rare A-list assignment, but as a marker from the Reagan years in the normalization of America’s most polarizing war.  To broadly generalize, in the movies, WWI - Wasteful; WWII - Heroic; the Korean War - Ignored.  And Vietnam?  A three-way split:  All Atrocities all the time (DEER HUNTER/’78); Honorable (GREEN BERETS/’68*); Religious allegory (PLATOON/’86).  But there’s an attitudinal change here, so even as the story becomes more conflicted & morally complicated, not much plays out in a manner that’s specific to the Vietnam ‘conflict.’  Instead, ‘A War is A War is A War’ after desk-jockey/combat virgin Lt. Colonel Gene Hackman, having bailed into an upcoming war target he himself had chosen, is forced to fight, run & kill in the field (and watch dozens die around him).  Danny Glover’s the aging flyer who spots him, then can’t stop risking all to pull him out.  Get thru the unpromising opening (helicopter lands behind Hackman during a golf practice session) and things rapidly improve.  Partially because artistic tension builds from David Cronenberg’s regular D.P. Mark Irwin (not long off THE FLY/’87) leaning surrealistic while Markle seeks realistic.  

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *How pointedly ironic that John Wayne’s all but last public appearance came giving THE DEER HUNTER Best Pic at the Oscars®.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: One of the earliest Vietnam War pics to make contact with what was specific about the conflict, GO TELL THE SPARTANS/’78, is regularly skipped over for bigger, emptier things.    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/05/go-tell-spartans-1978.html

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