For me, Vietnam war movies are the most interesting admist the war sub-genre (after nuclear war films, of course). A lot of World War Two films are really just wartime adventure nonsense - what happened in Vietnam was far more interesting and led to many more exciting movies. Because the war was an absolute disaster for America, it is fascinating to see how they played out this political and social trauma on the big screen. For years it was too painful to get to grips with it, but when the subject was broached, there was a deluge of Vietnam War films. Different themes were explored - the plight of Vietnam vets, the truism of "War is Hell," the committal of war atrocities, and the nature of good vs. evil. It is a conflict that caught my imagination - more so than World War II, which we had to study each year in school - for GCSE and A-Level - until the reasons for the rise of Nazism were tumbling from our brains out of our nostrils. So, yes, this be a Hitler-free zone. Please enjoy this list of 10 notable Vietnam war films (not the top 10, because I want to explore a range of films that tackle the subject differently. Your opinions will differ to mine).
10. The Green Berets (1968)
A film that wears its political ideology on its front arm, you may wonder what the heck John Wayne and his Green Berets are doing on this list given the fact that it is critically reviled, ideologically unsound and generally just hated by everyone. Well this is a list of Ten Vietnam War films, not Top Ten Vietnam war films. In this list I strive to be all inclusive in our examination of the Vietnam war. Not just put out Platoon and a bunch of big budget clones. A bunch of cynical journalists are given a special briefing of why America is in Vietnam. Apparently they are fighting multinational communism - the weapons on the Viet Cong are from China, Russia and other Soviet states. One particular journalist - Beckworth - is still entirely sceptical so John Wayne (Colonel Mike Kirby) invites him to South Vietnam. Beckworth gets to see Kirby's forces hand out sweeties to kiddies. Still sceptical, when the Viet Cong attack the forces he changes his mind but admits he can't air such a view from his paper or he would be sacked. Now everybody, get the tissues ready. One of the soldiers has befriended a war orphan who has nobody left but his dog and the soldiers. His dog gets killed in fighting and the poor wee mite buries him. Sniff, sniff (this is honest sentiment!). Beckworth buggers off and there is a big boring military campaign involving Kirby. When they come back, the orphan boy runs from helicopter to helicopter looking for his soldier friend. Kirby breaks the news to him and the little orphan boy asks "What will become of me?". Kirby puts a Green Beret on the tyke's head, says to him "You let me worry about that. You are what the war is all about." The two walk off hand in hand into the sunset and a trillion people watching this around the globe lose their lunches with incredible force and gusto. John Wayne basically plays Cowboys and Indians in Vietnam and manages to insult everyone in the process. Pure propaganda for the American effort in Vietnam, watching Wayne walk off hand in hand with. Little Vietnamese boy sums up the image that the USA would like to have of themselves in Vietnam - the big powerful nation benevolently leads along the little lost nation into the sunshine of the Western world and democracy. Very at odds with actual US behaviour in Vietnam - using napalm, depending on high body counts as a means of measuring how successful they were, blatantly violating every single code of the Geneva convention and committing mass genocide and atrocities on civilians. In the face of the above behaviour, The Green Berets is both deeply mendacious and putrid.