Rating: 
Summary: Poorly done movie
Review: Poorly done with a horrible cast and a gross overuse of "trooper", in Platoon you can see the truth, in Full Metal Jacket it was even more gruesome. This movie was unrealistic, I mean Alphabet died saying "Don't forget me don't" instead of something real like "oh jesus I don't wanna die". I have read many true stories on Vietnam the best was "Ghost and Shadows" by Phil Ball but LRRP:Phantom Warriors by Gary Linderer is up there to they depict the real war not some crap about a Lieutenant losing his arm and not noticing, a grenade exploding 2 inches from the head of someone and not dying and using a poor death actions. When "Motown" died they blatandely used a wooden figure instead of something better like clay. They didn't resent the FNG's they liked them, arbitrary amount of ammo in the magazines I didn't see one reload except with an M79 I saw someone using an M16 for about a minute thirty constantly firing, at the time of hill 937 the M16 still had 20, or 18 shot mags. The guy who had a sucking chest wound(you can tell by the plastic wrap" who was carrying an M60 after his wound instead of the lighter M16 he was using earlier he was also topless why? The prostituion scenes were horrible they girls were speaking perfect instead of broken english. You want to see the real Vietnam watch Full Metal Jacket, Platoon, Apocalypse Now, or if you just want to see the bad things from 'Nam Deer Hunter. I recommend reading LRRP:Phantom Warriors by Gary A. Linderer, 100th Kill by Charles Sasser whos an ex-army grunt from Korea and knows the life, "Ghost and Shadows" is easily one of the best books I have ever read.
Rating: 
Summary: Educational, but too hard to follow
Review: This movie lacks the dopey melodrama of the other Vietnam movies I've seen, and it seemed more "real". However, as my husband and I watched it we kept turning to each other and asking, "Did you understand that?" We couldn't even decipher the words that were said during the many conversations, and when we could hear the words, we often didn't know what they meant. So it was sort of like watching a movie in a foreign language without subtitles. Because of that I found myself getting bored and my attention drifting off. Also, the premise, though a true story, was so depressing. The men try eleven times to take a hill that has no military value, mostly out of stupidy, pride, and spite, it appears. It is obvious that they were doing exactly what the Viet Cong wanted them to do, over and over and over again (11 times) with terrible casualties. So, we finally won the worthless hill, but the Viet Cong really won the battle by inflicting greater casualties. I would classify this movie more as educational than entertainment. The filming is great, it's just hard to follow. And if there is a book(?) I would try and read that first so the movie makes more sense.
Rating: 
Summary: Failed Potential
Review: Of all the films made about the Vietnam conflict, this one is the most cliched and boring of the bunch. Without comparing this one to the others, however, let's take a look at it on its own. The battle the film depicts was the perfect choice for a film about a war as futile as this one. The point of taking the hill is unclear, the benefit unknown, and the sheer carnage unimaginable. The battle is a metaphor for the entire war. The cast is talented, with several young stars making an early impression. The potential for a great film is here, but the film does not live up to the ingredients that go into it. The film has several scenes that have the chance to bring a point home. The scene where Dylan McDermott is lecturing the new troops is shot very well, with the sabateur making his way toward the group. However, the script is filled with lines that sound like a Hollywood screenwriter trying to sound like a soldier. When Dylan says "I'm going to save your life and you're going to save mine," you want to cringe because it sounds so canned. The film deals with race issues, but again the effect is forced and unbelievable. These guys sit around making soliloquies that lack any feeling of realness to them, because the director is trying to show the profoundness of what they are going through by making the speech profound. Grunts don't sit around like a group of cappucino-swilling beat poets pondering the deeper meaning of what is happening to them like this. The actors speak with a perspective that seems to convey that they already know what their personal outcome is, but they are going to live their role regardless of it. Now compare the film to others made about the war, and this film pales further. While more stylistic, a film like Full Metal Jacket carries a much greater impact than this one, and Platoon is still Jacket's rival as the standard for Vietnam films. Do yourself a favor and rent or buy one of the others before you put money down on this one.
Rating:
Summary: Another 1980's vietnam film... is it worth it?
Review: I didnt even finish this film. There are so many other vietmam films, and so many better ones: If you must buy one, check out Full Metal Jacket... or perhaps Apocalypse Now. Platoon is good too. This movie has no plot or anything that resembles a good war movie...
Rating: 
Summary: The Best Viet Nam War Movie so far...
Review: Director John Irvin has a knack for representing warfare accurately on celluloid (THE DOGS OF WAR). HAMBURGER HILL is, by far, the most realistic Viet Nam war film yet made. It works on two levels. The battle scenes are superbly rendered. The Viet Cong and NVA are seen crouching safely in well protected bunkers when American airpower is unleasehed upon them. Time and again they are bombed with napalm and white phosphorus, but to no avail. The Americans slog endlessly up the muddy Hill 937 during intense Monsoon conditions. Snipers pop out of tunnels and shoot them from behind. The film packs an emotional wallop, as well. From the first scene at the mall in Washington, DC where the camera tracks along panels of the Vietnam memorial, where one entire panel is made of the names of those who fell at Hill 937 we disolve to a firefight : a Godforsaken clearing in the A Shau valley, the valley of death...the film seeks to bring the stories of the dead to life. The focus is clearly on the soldiers as we learn of their daily struggles to fight a war in which those on the home front have given up on. Many references are made to their felt anguish, their abandonment by the media and the American public doing nothing to bolster their spirits in this hellacious campaign to take a denuded hill that no one seems to realy care about, except the enemy. Laments of, "It don't mean nothing, not a thing." heard every time a buddy is cut down come off sounding more and more like Vietnamese Buddhist fatalism rather than American nihilism.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent DVD
Review: I happen to like this film. Some people won't like it. I personally think this film captures the futility of war and the nobility of the common soldier much better than other, highly stylized movies in this genre. Having said this, the only recommendation I am comfortable giving is based on the technical merit of this DVD. It's an excellent transfer. There are only minor film flaws on the print from which the master was made. These are standard film flaws and I did not find them distracting. The sound is remixed in Dolby Digital and it is excellent. It is neither too bright nor too heavy in the bass. It's just right. The image is bright, colorful and stable. I noticed no video decompression artifacts during my screening. Aliasing is only slightly more apparent than on a raw (uncompressed) NTSC source. The interface is simple, easy to use and well designed. The extras are lean. You only get the theatrical trailer. This is fine by me since the actual movie looks and sounds so good. It means the studio gave preference to quality instead of half-baked extras. There are no ads either. I can't tell you how much I appreciate that. Quite frankly, I don't know why all DVDs aren't this good. My hat is off to Artisan and to EDS, who did the compression. If you like this film as I do, I think you will like this DVD.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent, but...
Review: Why the Hell haven't they made a sound track for this movie. It's got tons of songs like when a man loves a woman, and my personal favorite we got to get out of this place. If they want to make more money (who doesn't) they should make a soundtrack. Great movie, ok acting, good combat scenes, and great plot.
Rating:
Summary: This is one of the best war movies ever!
Review: First off to the person who said this has no plot has obvously no conception of what war is. That is the plot war it self has no plot and that was what this movie proved thtas why its so real. It did though have a plot it showed how the rookies and the short timers interact and how all of them try to survive war. The who movie embodied the era that it was in with everything including race and the anti war movment and it show how the war was both a complete contrast of what was going on back home and how it it also tied in. But to cut through all that it shows what war is and maby we could take a lesson from it.
Rating:
Summary: SIMPLE AND DIRECT TO THE POINT
Review: This is a great war movie. The 101 Airborne Divison was already in trouble in the Normandy landings in 1944, now it was in trouble again in Vietnam. The movie is simple and direct to the point. It doesn't offer you bags of patriotism, it doesn't offer you bags of poor characters trying to show "deepness". Good.
Rating:
Summary: One of the Most Realistic War Movies Ever Made
Review: HAMBURGER HILL is ultra-realistic because it has no plot, no characterization to speak of, and simply depicts the bravery and insanity of warfare. But what puts it over the top in terms of realism is the scene just after the movie is halfway through, with the American soldiers struggling to take the hill against the unseen Vietnamese enemy, and just as they're exhausted, they see US helicopters coming, and they're relieved -- BUT the helicopters start machine-gunning the American soldiers! "No" they wave frantically, but the machine-gunning continues, and you know that the gunners in the helicopters can't tell whether they're shooting at Americans or Vietnamese, because the Vietnamese would be smart enough also to wave their hands and say "no." So the carnage continues. "Friendly fire" occurred very often in World War II, probably far more often than in Vietnam, except it has been kept a dark military secret, and I only found out about it by talking with an ex-Marine colonel, who confirmed my guess that a great many American soldiers were killed by their own side, especially in the South Pacific. This colonel told me that there was such competition between the Army and Navy (and this we all know from the studies of the Second World War) that when marines were sent from ship to shore, they were in a non-jurisdictional place, neither under control of the Navy which had transported them to the island, nor the Army which was already on the beach and awaiting reinforcements. The Army Air Corps was bombing away and killed many of these US marines. After the War, the various services were consolidated into a Department of Defense in order to avoid these inter-service rivalries and wastage, but traditions have remained and there is still a lack of coordination and an inter-service suspicion. But my point here is that you can watch a World War II movie in vain to see even the slightest hint of deaths from friendly fire. So that's what makes the scene in HAMBURGER HILL so revealing. Even SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, with its great opening scene of the landing at Normandy Beach, shies away from the "friendly fire" problem. Unfortunately, HAMBURGER HILL, after depicting it, has an interim scene where everyone is sitting around the camp, and no one mentions the "friendly fire" that has just occurred! It's as if they shot the movie in segments (which is usually the movies are shot), and then spliced them together, without caring about continuity. You can see how this would happen: because there is no plot, no one bothered about continuity. Therefore, while I can recommend HAMBURGER HILL if you want to experience what battles are really like from the soldier's point of view, don't be looking for a story. The absence of a good screenplay is why I think it would be misleading to give this movie any more than three stars. Bottom line: if you are a war-movies fan, the realism of HAMBURGER HILL is nothing short of amazing.
| 
