Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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83 of 90 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the best Vietnam movies ever!, May 2, 2003
In 480BCE 300 Spartan Hoplites held a pass for the better part of 3 days against a Persian force that may have numbered over 200,000 men. The Spartans were aided by around 7,000 coalition troops during the first 2 days. However, they were dismissed on the 3rd day. The Spartans, their Helots and the Thespians allies died to a last man. It was one of the most gallant stands in all of military history.To this day there is an inscription on the funeral mound @ Thermopylae that serves as a memorial to their sacrifice. An English translation is as follows: GO TELL THE SPARTANS, STRANGER PASSING BY
THAT HERE OBEDIENT TO THEIR LAWS WE LIE. The title of this movie is an allusion to Thermopylae. However, the film itself is about the earliest days of Vietnam. It recounts a time not long after the fall of Dien Bien Pu; an epoch when the U.S. did not have a commitment of a significant number of troops. During the period covered in this movie all that we had over there were a handful of military advisors. The film details an obscure event at a Vietnam village known as Muc Wa. Although the battle itself will not likely even find its way into the footnotes of history, it nevertheless serves as an excellent "premonition" of what was to come. It narrates how much the U.S. underestimated the fighting prowess and resolve of the Viet Cong. In fact, Muc Wa can be said to be a microcosm of how the entire Vietnam War went for the United States. The cast of the film is fairly impressive. The lead is taken by Burt Lancaster who portrays a Major who is asked to do the impossible with almost no resources at all. A very young Marc Singer plays his XO. Craig Wasson (best known for his leading role in Brian Depalma's BODY DOUBLE) plays a shy young corporal. This is a terrific Vietnam movie that encapsulates just about everything that went wrong for the U.S. in the ill-fated conflict. It's a must see for all who seek to learn and understand the facts of the early stages and how it all went downhill from there.
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39 of 44 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
All the absurdity of Vietnam in 114 minutes, June 30, 2002
This is one of the best war movies ever made, even though there are few battle scenes and the focus is on circumstances and personalities. The setting is southern Vietnam in 1964, before large numbers of American ground troops were committed. The Americans were still in an "advisory" and support role, although they were already fighting and dying.
Burt Lancaster is superb as a hardened major trying to keep a handle on a senseless situation. His explanation of why he is still a major after so many years is one of the classic scenes in all of film. He deadpans a hilarious scene very well as he describes an incident with the wife of a superior.
All of the absurdity of the American involvement in Vietnam appears in the movie. Ordered to garrison a useless post against his wishes, Lancaster complies and then the post is abandoned, leaving the troops to fight their way out and back to base. An extended family of Viet Cong sympathizers are found and befriended, over the objections of the experienced American and Vietnamese troops. The naïve Americans talk about "winning the hearts and minds" only to be proven wrong.
This is very likely the most historically accurate movie about the Vietnam war ever made. "Civilian" VietCong soldiers fighting and dying, the bribing of opulent Vietnamese officers to get them to fight what is their war and frustration at the pointless policies combine with superb performances to make it one of the best "historical" movies ever made.
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23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Clearly one of the best Vietnam Films, November 27, 2004
I first saw this film in the theater. It was genuine. I rate it high. I would recommend it without reservation, except, if what you know about Vietnam you learned from Hollywood or on campus, it may surprise you. It's not about what the other movie makers wanted to show you, to shock you, to entertain, to proselytize. I never kept a scorecard of technical deficiencies, but to my mind, "Go Tell the Spartans was unmatched by Vietnam stories on film until "We Were Soldiers" in 2002, nearly a quarter century later. There were several others that tried hard. One prolific and self-assured reviewer has rated "Spartans" a one star and does a "Siskel and Ebert" number on it, during which, unwittingly, he discredits his own commentary, at least in the eyes of this veteran, when he says Go Tell the Spartans "...is no way comparable to the great post-Vietnam War films...Apocalypse Now, Taxidriver, Platoon, Born in the USA, and finally the devastating Full Metal Jacket..." Really? Apocalypse Now was a fairy tale! It may have been great storyline and cinematography, as were the Lord of the Rings, but fairy tales, none the less. And, Stone's movies seemed more defaming of real soldiers, with political overtones. I returned from Vietnam in 1969. I know a man who was in Vietnam 15 years earlier - 5 years before our country acknowledged our first casualties [The Memorial dates the war from 1959 to 1975]. There are many millions of stories about Vietnam over the course of a changing war that was the longest in our history. Go Tell the Spartans is one such story. It wasn't the most memorable, by Hollywood standards. But it was compelling. And it was the most believable. And, in this veteran's assessment, whatever its warts, Go Tell the Spartans was the best until "We Were Soldiers".
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