Some good performances from Casper Van Dien and the supporting cast in Going Back make up for a rather indifferent production of this Canadian based film about the Vietnam experience of Echo Company and the survivors of same.

Echo company was commanded by Captain Casper Van Dien and he's by all accounts a perfect Marine role model. The company took some very heavy casualties during the Tet Offensive and Van Dien and those few like Sergeant Bobby Hosea and others are all that's left.

Filming all this is Carre Otis as these survivors visit Vietnam during the Nineties as part of a Vietnamese government program to try and heal the old war wounds. They run pretty deep in the survivors of Echo Company.

In the Tet Offensive and the aftermath the company is involved with both the accidental killing of civilians and a case of mutiny with some would be Fletcher Christians making some all around bad choices. But some buried truths finally see the light of day.

Standing out among the supporting performances is Martin Kove who plays a Marine chaplain. Quite a different Kove do we see than we know from Cagney&Lacey and the Karate Kid movies.

Going Back is not in the class of Casualties Of War which I consider the best Vietnam War film or Platoon. But it definitely is worthwhile viewing.

This is a rather long film about a troop of Vietnam vets who return to Vietnam to visit their demons and reenact "the incident." A camera crews follows the group so Deborah Zoe can have a nude scene. Basic scenario: Vietnam good. America bad. I personally don't have trouble watching something showing us the Vietnamese were human, but some people might. Numerous flashbacks.

Casper Van Dien with "A positive blood" played the captain of the group and was far less convincing than when he was killing bugs. The ending of the film lets us know this was based on a true story by Sidney J. Furie. I liked the background setting. The film was more about the drama than a war story. If you like to watch gritty scenes of "B" actors lament for dead comrades 32 years after the fact, this film has all of that.

Guide F-bomb, sex, nudity. Available on a 12 pack "Under Fire" $5.00 US Walmart.

Since the ending of the Vietnam War, two principal styles of feature films have been produced revolving about that baleful event, one that emphasises scenes of frantic combat activity, the second stressing off-center characterization of United States military personnel, most often encumbered with tiresome politicizing anent the evil actions of corrupted American servicemen in contrast with the apparently innate dignity and humanity manifested by Vietnamese people; within this grotesquely melodramatic piece is included the worst aspects of each, with triteness lavishly added for good measure. The film opens with a military reunion organised by cinema documentarian Kathleen Martin (Carrè Otis) who has assembled six veterans from a heavily depleted U. S. Marine Echo Company, bringing about their rendezvous held in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) for the purpose of filming their impressions of erstwhile battlefields, and eventually to restage, if all agree, a controversial incident that had occurred during the war, later resulting in a court martial of the Company's leader, Captain Ramsey (Caspar Van Dien). The film wants narrative clarity, indeed even basic credibility, while plot execution is muddled; an altogether plodding and unpersuasive affair with wholesale utilisation of bromidic scenes, one even comprised of slow motion lovemaking by Van Dien and Otis. Stock footage of crowded streets in Ho Chi Minh City provide mild interest, while combat segments are largely effective, and editing is quite successful with flashbacks. However, the depiction of on-scene battle photography is unrealistically presented, and a droning score is of no assistance. It is best for this subject matter if it will be created by individuals who were there.