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NUMBERS
Box Office: $78,064,284
VHS Rentals: $15,060,000
details...
CONSENSUS
The war cliches are laid on a bit thick, but the movie succeeds at putting a human face on soldiers of both sides in the Vietnam War.
CAST & CREW
Mel Gibson, Madeleine Stowe, Greg Kinnear
Directed by Randall Wallace
more...
SYNOPSIS
In 1965, 400 American troops faced an ambush by 2,000 enemy troops in the Ia Drang Valley (also known as the Valley of Death), in one of the most gruesome fights of the Vietnam War. more...
MPAA RATING
R, sustained sequences of graphic war violence and language
RUNTIME
2 hours, 18 minutes
RELEASE DATES
Theatrical: Mar 1, 2002
Video: Aug 20, 2002
RELEASE COMPANY
Paramount Pictures
GENRE
Action/Adventure, Dramas, Action, Vietnam, War, Vietnam War, Soldiers
OFFICIAL SITE
• The Official We Were Soldiers Site
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SOUNDTRACK REVIEWS
PARENTS EVALUATION
POSTERS
TRAILER & MEDIA
PHOTOS
TIDBITS
NEWS ARTICLES
LINKS
SUBMIT/EDIT ARTICLE
SUBMIT USER REVIEW
FORUM
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 "Wallace directs with such patronising reverence, it turns the stomach."
-- The Wolf, IOFILM.CO.UK
 "... a story we haven't seen on the big screen before, and it's a story that we as Americans, and human beings, should know."
-- Staci Layne Wilson, FANTASTICA DAILY
"Perhaps a better celebration of these unfairly dismissed heroes would be a film that isn’t this painfully forced, false and fabricated."
-- Scott Weinberg, APOLLO GUIDE
"Wallace seems less like he's been burning to tell a war story than he's been itching to somehow tack one together"
-- Ian Waldron-Mantgani, UK CRITIC
"... an incredibly heavy-handed, manipulative dud that feels all too familiar."
-- Jeff Vice, DESERET NEWS, SALT LAKE CITY
"... a good, if not entirely fresh, look at war."
-- Derek Tse, JAM! MOVIES
"[H]ad I suffered and bled on the hard ground of Ia Drang, I'd want something a bit more complex than We Were Soldiers to be remembered by."
-- Tor Thorsen, REEL.COM
"Crisply and efficiently made...but ultimately its very old-fashioned
earnestness makes it seem a little creaky,...like a cinematic
nostalgia trip."
-- Frank Swietek, ONE GUY'S OPINION
"Supposedly authentic account of a historical event that's far too tragic to merit such superficial treatment."
-- David Sterritt, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
"Offers no new insight on the matter, nor do its characters exactly spring to life."
-- Eric D. Snider, ERICDSNIDER.COM
"Wallace gets a bit heavy handed with his message at times, and has a visual flair that waxes poetic far too much for our taste."
-- Chuck Schwartz, CRANKY CRITIC®
"Fails to bring as much to the table."
-- Marc Savlov, AUSTIN CHRONICLE
"The film feels formulaic, its plot and pacing typical Hollywood war-movie stuff, while the performances elicit more of a sense of deja vu than awe."
-- Eli Sanders, SEATTLE TIMES
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"A must-see for fans of thoughtful war films and those interested in the sights and sounds of battle."
-- Phil Villarreal, ARIZONA DAILY STAR
"While some will object to the idea of a Vietnam picture with such a rah-rah, patriotic tone, Soldiers ultimately achieves its main strategic objective: dramatizing the human cost of the conflict that came to define a generation."
-- Michael Tunison, BOXOFFICE MAGAZINE
"Writer-director Randall Wallace has bitten off more than he or anyone else could chew, and his movie veers like a drunken driver through heavy traffic."
-- Lawrence Toppman, CHARLOTTE OBSERVER
"... Wallace is smart to vary the pitch of his movie, balancing deafening battle scenes with quieter domestic scenes of women back home receiving War Department telegrams."
-- Gary Thompson, PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS
"With We Were Soldiers, Hollywood makes a valiant attempt to tell a story about the Vietnam War before the pathology set in."
-- Bob Strauss, LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS
"I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Just because it’s a true story, that doesn’t mean it’s a great one.
"
-- Collin Souter, EFILMCRITIC.COM
"Even the presence of a Hollywood megastar like Mel Gibson doesn’t detract from the vividly authentic look and feel of the battle scenes."
-- Shirley Sealy, FILM JOURNAL INTERNATIONAL
"This is a soldier's action-war film, that eulogizes them as noble heroes in a questionable war that has turned into a
nightmare."
-- Dennis Schwartz, OZUS' WORLD MOVIE REVIEWS
"plays like an unbalanced mixture of graphic combat footage and almost saccharine domestic interludes that are pure Hollywood."
-- James Sanford, KALAMAZOO GAZETTE
"The only thing that distinguishes a Randall Wallace film from any other is the fact that there is nothing distinguishing in a Randall Wallace film."
-- Alex Sandell, JUICY CEREBELLUM
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"Succeeds where its recent predecessor miserably fails because it demands that you suffer the dreadfulness of war from both sides."
-- Robert Wilonsky, NEW TIMES
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FRESH 73%
Avg. Rating: 6.9/10 |
"Mel Gibson fights the good fight in Vietnam in director Randall Wallace's flag-waving war flick with a core of decency."
-- Stephanie Zacharek, SALON.COM
"The film succeeds as an homage to human spirit in the most shattering of circumstances."
-- Philip Wuntch, DALLAS MORNING NEWS
"It's unfortunate that Wallace, who wrote Gibson's Braveheart as well as the recent Pearl Harbor, has such an irrepressible passion for sappy situations and dialogue."
-- Kenneth Turan, LOS ANGELES TIMES
"Has an impact that transcends politics and some dramatic overreaching by writer-director Randall Wallace."
-- Peter Travers, ROLLING STONE
"By attributing intelligence, bravery and above all, humanity, to enemy forces as well as to U.S. troops, We Were Soldiers does itself proud."
-- Susan Stark, DETROIT NEWS
"The sentimental cliches mar an otherwise excellent film. A powerful performance from Mel Gibson and a brutal 90-minute battle sequence that does everything but issue you a dog-tag and an M-16."
-- Joel Siegel, ABCNEWS.COM
" At its best, it's Black Hawk Down with more heart. At its worst, it's Rambo- meets-John Ford."
-- Gene Seymour, NEWSDAY
"Like the best war movies -- and like martial literature going back to the Iliad -- it balances the dreadful, unassuageable cruelty of warfare and the valor and decency of those who fight."
-- A.O. Scott, NEW YORK TIMES
"The writer-director bestows honor -- generously, apolitically -- not only on the dead and still living American veterans who fought in Ia Drang, but also on their families, on their Vietnamese adversaries, and on the families of their adversaries too."
-- Lisa Schwarzbaum, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
"As I settled into my World War II memories, I found myself strangely moved by even the corniest and most hackneyed contrivances."
-- Andrew Sarris, NEW YORK OBSERVER
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"Another in a long line of ultra-violent war movies, this one is not quite what it could have been as a film, but the story and theme make up for it."
-- Paul Salfen, SUPERCALA.COM
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* Who are the Approved Tomatometer Critics?
* Mouse over a tomato icon for a publication's original rating. Original rating not available for every publication.
* In fairness to critics whose last name begins with a letter at the end of the alphabet, certain pages are sorted in reverse order, z-a.
* Certain "We Were Soldiers" article data provided by the Movie Review Query Engine.
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iamtheporcupine
| Most humbling moment: "Fainting at my sister's wedding. I was the maid of honor. It's all on tape." |
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