Rating: 
Summary: Great anti-propaganda propaganda, but needs editing.
Review: "Hearts and Minds" is a great work of art, but after watching it a number of times and showing excerpts to college students, it seems to me that the film needs editing, omitting redundant parts. I write this in the hope that the next edition of the video will consolidate the sections on bombing, shorten the overall length, and omit the nude scenes so that the video can be shown publicly in its entirety. The nude scenes, incidentally, add nothing to the film's message. This film can help young people understand the Vietnam War in a deeper way, politically and personally.
Rating: 
Summary: Good documentary indeed but don't think...
Review: ...that it gives you the "ultimate truth" about the Vietnam War.Hearts and Minds (1974) talks about the US's involvement in Vietnam and takes a critical stance toward it by portraying devastating effects of the Vietnam War. It uses many sources such as interviews from the US officials, war veterans, and victims of the war, and newsreels and actual war footage add more visually striking experience to the viewers. The documentary was excellent indeed and addressed clearly about why the war was unjust and inhumane, but there was no doubt in my mind that it had many biased and false views as well. To me it was a propaganda film in a subtle sense that reminded me of Fahrenheit 9/11, which was released in theaters recently. People might disagree with me about the word "propaganda" that I put, but as indicated the Oxford dictionary, it means "ideas or statements that may be false or exaggerated and that are used in order to gain support for a political leader, party, etc," and the documentary clearly does all that. It was used as a political tool by anti-war protestors to end the further US involvement in Vietnam, full of overgeneralizations.
I realized that the documentary tried to make those involved in the war look like ignorant people. On many occasions, Peter Davis-the director of the film-deliberately made all the war veterans either fools or victims who were misguided by the government. There's a scene that one guy who supports the war tells the US is fighting for "North Vietnam." Why did Davis put this in his documentary? He's saying as if all "pro-war," "war-loving" people are all fully unaware about the situations in Vietnam like that guy. Then were "all" anti-war protesters fully aware about the persecutions by North Vietnam that were far greater than what the US did? Also, the documentary shows one war veteran who is hostile toward the VCs and freely uses the word "gook." I agree that it certainly offends Asian people but this is another trap set up by Davis to prevent viewers from having "rational" thoughts. Although he's a racist, I also understand his frustration that the North Vietnamese cowardly used children, the elderly, and women as suicide bombers. Military law indicates that civilians who use arms are considered combatants and subject to be killed.
Although it clearly is an excellent documentary, Hearts and Minds offers only a one-sided narrow view toward the causes and effects of the Vietnam War. Yes, war is indeed chaotic and no one certainly wants to experience it because many people die and suffer. But is it possible to have a war that has no civilian casualties and everyone lives happily? I haven't heard a single war like that before. It never addresses all the atrocities done by the communist government after the US irresponsibly withdrew its troops from Vietnam, abandoning the South Vietnamese. And what about millions of innocent people executed and sent to prison and the boat people who had to risk their lives and migrate to other countries to escape socio-political persecutions? People don't seem to realize that not only the North Vietnamese fought for their nation, but the South Vietnamese did too. But Davis is saying as if all Vietnamese supported the communist government backed by the Soviet Union (ironic) and united as one to fight off the US, the evil empire that tried to take over the galaxy. He should've instead been more honest by telling the viewers that we should not involve in other country's affair because we don't want waste our tax money and just ignore all the atrocities committed by the communist government because it has nothing to do with us. I want honest opinions like that instead of sugarcoated facts that are exaggerated to serve for certain interest groups.
Rating:
Summary: Hearts and Minds / One Opinion
Review: A necessity for anyone studying the history of the Vietnam conflict. This academy award-wining documentary has been out of print for over twenty-five years. Although it purports to be unbiased, the viewer has to be the judge. But whatever your take on that sad era, it comes across as a stunning indictment of American hubris and adventurism in the former French colonies. Bear in mind that this film was released just months before the US so ignominiously left Saigon from the US embassy complex rooftops. Not to be missed - especially when considering the current US military involvement in the Middle East.
Rating:
Summary: Trial America!
Review: After watching this movie, one wonders why United States Statesmen and military men and their cohort bankers have not been put to trial for the atrocities they have committed. This movie is but an instance of American atrocities since WWII. Just think, when watching this film that there is a myriad of covert and overt operations the U.S.A. has been involoved in. I look forward to the day whence the world and in particular the third world comes together and finds a voice to demand justice.
PUT AMERICA ON TRIAL
Perhaps the first half of the twentienth century will just be such a century.
Rating:
Summary: Hearts & Minds
Review: As a Vietnam Veteran undergraduate in Illinois our Vets Club rented this movie for a Vietnam Symposiom in April of 1975. Both Francis Fitzgerald and Walt Rostow were speakers and we showed "Hearts & Minds" as an introduction to this two day event. The great ironry is that it was the same week that Siagon fell which brought an ironic closer to this event that we had spent six months planning. This academy award winning film still weighs heavy in my mind both for its content and the events under which we viewed it. It is essential that any person attempting to bring sense to the War in Vietnam view this film. The owner of its video rights have a moral obligation to let American citizens watch this film.
Rating: 
Summary: Non Objective
Review: As well made as this film is, it is not an accurate documentary of the vietnam war. Only one side is portrayed, and the entire video, even down to the choices of archive clips to include, is only written to blow everything out of context and debunk the black to its white.
Rating:
Summary: powerful, and relevant in today's "theatre"
Review: Basically a documentary of the Vietnam War's impact on humanity. Interviews with senior officials and servicemen, as well as political goons of the era. This is one of the most interesting, disturbing and powerful views of the war. The interviews with pilots who saw themselves as "technicians" doing their job and marines who only wanted to "kill gooks" but then realized that they were in fact killing human beings, Heart's and Minds is as intense as it is historically important. If you want to understand humanity and war better, don't miss. ...
Rating: 
Summary: Propaganda "Documentary"
Review: Hearts & Minds is edited to make America look more evil than the communist North Vietnamese. The juxtaposition of scenes and images, the out of context sound bites, the carefully selected individuals for testimonials are all put together to make Vietnam Vets look like cripples, crazies, shells of human beings. Peter Davis' shameless exploitation of the family who lost a son to the war to advance this films agenda is sickening. There is no balance to this film. There is nothing there to show you the brutality the North Vietnamese Communist Army inflicted on the South Vietnamese people during the war. There is no political look inside the North Vietnamese government. No North Vietnamese version of Clark Clifford and Daniel Ellsberg to interview. And then for Peter Davis to compare what happened in Vietnam to the American Revolution is ludicrous and scholarly dishonest. When I saw this movie I had learned enough about film editing in the film classes I had taken to know the tricks of the trade to get to the emotional side of the audience. This film works. I too remember a quiet audience. However, there was some hissing when Westmoreland said we had beaten the enemy at Tet 68. Everyone in the theater thought Westmoreland was telling a lie because Walter Cronkite had said Tet was a defeat for us. We now know Westmoreland was right and Cronkite was wrong. The facts show we lost this war not on the battlefield but politically at home. It is interesting to note that this DVD gets released in time take its place with other liberal diatribes against our country. This film is worth watching if you want to see how to make an excellent propaganda "documentary" like Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 4/11.
Rating:
Summary: another generation's war
Review: i came of age in the US during VietNam on the evening news. I had a favorite and influential uncle who spent 3 years fighting there. I was unprepared for how deeply the documentary effected me. just get it and watch it.
and hopefully iraq does not become vietnam.
Rating:
Summary: Great contemporary documentary concerning the Vietnam War
Review: I don't know what the viewer from Tallahassees' problem is. Somehow they think that seeing people murdered in Vietnam is OK but, a couple of GI's in a Saigon whore house is the obscene part that nobody should watch. Obviously, this person spent no time in the 'nam. Enough said about that. This is a great documentary about the American involvement in Vietnam as whole. It does have that dovish anti-war feeling to it. But, let's face it, the place was simply murder on an industrial scale. The only way our leaders thought we could win the war was to kill almost everybody. This film shows that in graphic detail. This film is not for the faint of heart. But, I highly recommend it to those that want a slight glimpse of reality.
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