The Best Vietnam War Movie You've Never Seen

Why Hamburger Hill Is One Of The True Great Vietnam War Films

While Hamburger Hill very much succeeds as a response to works like Apocalypse Now and The Deer Hunter - which was, according to the AFI, very much Carabatsos' intent - those films have ineclipsable legacies. The same goes for the two masterpieces it was unfortunately sandwiched between in Full Metal Jacket and Platoon. It's difficult to tell if it would've been thought more highly of had it arrived before the latter pair (Irvin has claimed that Paramount was anxious to release the film due to the dark tone and waited for Kubrick's to come out first), but its place in the genre canon should not be in doubt.

Like Stone's film, Hamburger Hill deserves praise for its unvarnished approach to the subject matter, which provided a vital corrective contribution to contemporary cinematic depictions of Vietnam, which were for the most part more concerned with Reaganistic conflict relitigation than they were with capturing the full scope and horror of the conflict. Platoon often gets the credit for hitting the reset button on that trend - and quite rightly, given its critical acclaim and box office success - but Hamburger Hill has always been of a piece with that film, despite criticisms of its perceived hawkishness. It may not reach the same lofty heights as its two immediate peers, but it remains an essential and blistering depiction of the conflict - and one that shouldn't be ignored.