Word of Honor

Rating:
Summary: haven't read it
Review: (...) I found it thought-provoking, moving, suspenseful, exciting, zesty, passionate, vigorous, and especially well acted by Don Johnson and Jeanne Tripplehorn. However, I would definitely read the book only AFTER seeing the movie lest you get all wadded up in frustration.

Rating:
Summary: disappointing
Review: I give this movie 3 stars only because I loved the book sooooo much. I re-read the book about once a year. I ended up getting a second copy because the first one was being kept together with a rubber band.

The book is truely about a man who gave his word of honor to his men only to have every one of them break their word. It was an incredible book with powerful emotions and images. All of this was lost in the movie.

If the premise of the movie/book interests you, please read the book first. If you see the movie first, you are unlikely to have any interest is reading the book.

Rating:
Summary: Cinematic Butchery of a Superlative Book
Review: The Nelson DeMille novel upon which this cobbled-together made-for-TV movie is putatively based was absolutely terrific, a well-written story with several levels of narrative and rich characterization. The book, called by some reviewers "the Caine Mutiny of the 1980s," is the story of a Vietnam Vet called back into the Army years after the war to face charges that his platoon committed war crimes in a hospital during the battle of Hue. The story development and details are extremely interesting, as is the interplay of the characters -- Ben Tyson, his wife (a former war protester), his son, the investingating officer (a female major), his lawyer, and even his commanding officer while on temporary duty... at no point did the story ever drag. It's a great book, and everyone who appreciates good literature would enjoy it immensely.

Accordingly, there is no need whatever to buy, rent, shoplift, download, pirate, borrow or in any fashion whatever expose yourself to the atrocious so-called movie supposedly made from this book. Telescoped and edited to fit your standard made-for-TV-movie two-hour broadcast timeframe, the story as brought to film is bland, vapid, vanilla, jejune, formula, insipid, passionless, torpid, saccharine, predictable and a complete waste of time.

Use that two hours instead to begin reading the book. You definitely won't regret it.