It's hard to put my finger on why it took me so long to get around to viewing this. It's been on my Prime watchlist for ages, and I love Brian Trenchard-Smith (he's honestly one of our greatest exports). I’m also a fan of quite a few Vietnam war movies. Albeit more the ones with anti-war sentiment (Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Full Metal Jacket etc.) over straight ‘Namsploitation (Mission In Action series, First Blood Part 2 etc.). I guess I thought this would fall into the latter, with Trenchard-Smith bringing the exploitation and Ermey and Hauser hamming it up and improvising wild dialogue.
Waffling aside, I guess I thought it could be shit so I kept putting it off, but after a strong recommendation from Pure Cinema (basically my unknowing film school professors by this point) I thought I'd finally pull the trigger (ugh). And guess what? Turns out it's actually a very well made war film that takes itself quite seriously. Even the R. Lee Ermey quips feel more grounded and realistic than anticipated.
The extreme violence that you'd expect from a Trenchard-Smith flick is certainly there, but it's not over the top like a lot of the films that he’s known for. It’s quite confronting, but used in a way that mirrors the anti-war sentiment of those aforementioned films. Of course there are a few “classic” Wings moments where you think he’s going to full Ramrod (Vice Squad), but ends up holding back. There’s also some “Merica, fuck yeah” flag waving going down, but it’s minimal and doesn’t detract from the overall serious tone.
War movie poster boy and icon R. Lee Emery and the legendary Albert Popwell plotting and scheming.
Admired by peers and fans for his action set pieces due to films like THE MAN FROM HONG KONG (1975) and DEAD END DRIVE IN (1986), Trenchard-Smith really ups the ante here. This is by no means a blockbuster war film with a Spielberg or Kubrick budget. It’s a relatively low budget film, but that doesn’t stop him from crafting some elaborate, well executed action set pieces. The lower budget and the purposeful messiness with some of the choreography really adds to the grittiness and realism. He conveys the unpredictability of battle in a way that evokes real fear and suspense.
I read that lots of Vietnam vets claim The Siege Of Firebase Gloria to be the most realistic depiction of the war. After watching this I can see why. There’s a frantic messy nature, and there are moments that are honestly quite shocking. There’s nothing slick about it and it never feels predictable. There’s a sense of hopelessness with the threat of death lurking around every corner. I can only imagine that this is one of the true horrors of war.
Trenchard-Smith did a great job crafting large scale set pieces on a tiny budget.
Having seen almost all of Trenchard-Smith’s films I would say that this is arguably his best work, and a really solid Vietnam war film that stacks right up there with the other top tier films within the genre.
FOUR out of FIVE stars.
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