I think I had gotten to the point where I wasn't going to see the rest of the DePalma films, but someone described this as "his passion project" recently, and that edged me into watching it.
Casualties of War is based on a true story, the story of the collective gang rape and murder of a young Vietnamese girl when the US troops were there during the Vietnam war. The film stars Michael J. Fox as the sole detractor from a group of five army guys who decide to grab this girl, and then later rape and kill her.
Brian DePalma has a unique emblematic style which is perhaps at the forefront of a lot of his work, generally noticeable, and one of his flourishes that people (like me) really like. They are present in this film, though toned down, and take the format of strange camera stuff usually.
The strange camera work in combination with the melodrama of the film makes it seem a bit over the top. It seems to actually handicap the seriousness of the story... It's a weird thing, and especially with the actors turning in sorta middling performances at times (especially from Fox, who I don't think is a particularly good actor) the movie actually comes off as sort of amateur and hokey, which I'm sure was not the intended affect given the sunject matter. I'm sorry n all guys, but I laughed out loud one time during this and it was not desired for me to.
That's the big thing to say about this, the other parts of it are all fine, they work to whatever degree they need to, and things go along as expected. I'm sure that these events taking place were altogether common, and it's a reminder of the horrors of war, loss of innocence, etc etc. I'm not ignoring these as unimportant, it's just like, hey I get it alright?
I'll give it a 2.5 I guess, and say it's a fine average dramatic war movie.
No comments:
Post a Comment