"We Were Soldiers" is based on a real life battle of the Viet Nam war that took place in 1965 in a remote part of Viet Nam. It is based on a book by Harold G. Moore and Joseph L. Galloway who are portrayed in the film by Mel Gibson and Barry Pepper respectively.

The film opens with a depiction of the 1954 slaughter of French troops by the Vietnamese army. Twenty one years later Lt. Col Moore (Gibson) and his battalion of 395 men are thrust unknowingly into the same hornet's nest consisting of some 4,000 battle hardened Viet Nam regulars who have been fighting their enemies for many years.

Director Randall Wallace tells the story from three perspectives. Firstly from the viewpoint of the Americans. Outnumbered ten to one they face impossible odds. How Col. Moore rallies his troops and gets them to pull together as a team is a central theme of the picture. Secondly, the story is told from the viewpoint of the wives and families left behind and the problems they have to deal with. Lastly, the Vietnamese army is shown not as unfeeling monsters, but as a professional army defending their beliefs and territory.

The battle scenes are as realistic and convincing as any war movie that you will ever see. We suffer through the casualties both on the battlefield and at home along with the participants. The special effects are seamless and exciting.

Mel Gibson gives a convincing performance as Moore and if you watch the DVD, you can see the amazing similarities between the two men. Madeleine Stowe plays Julie Moore and Keri Russell plays Barbara Geoghegan two of the wives who take on the unenviable task of delivering those dreaded telegrams to the widows from the War Department. Chris Klein plays Russell's husband Jack a new officer and father. His scene with Gibson in the base chapel is memorable. Greg Kinnear plays Captain Crandall the head of Moore's helicopter fleet. Don Duong is very effective as the Vietnamese commander. But acting cudos go to veteran Sam Elliot as the crusty Sgt. Major Plumley.

"We Were Soldiers" is a gripping Viet Nam war drama told in a way that reflects ALL of the participants in an impartially realistic way. As Hank Moore says on the DVD, They finally got it right.

This fact based drama stars Mel Gibson as Lt. Col. Hal Moore. He has gathered a force of 400 troopers and with aerial support they land in the Ia Drang Valley of north Vietnam in November 1965. It is the first major battle of the Vietnam War.

The US 7th Air Cavalry are surrounded by over 2000 enemy soldiers and they engage in a bloody battle to break through the North Vietnamese lines.

Back home the loved ones of the soldiers get news of what has been taking place. Moore needs to live up to the promise to his soldiers. "I will leave no man behind...dead or alive. We will all come home together."

Randall Wallace who wrote Braveheart reunited with Mel Gibson for We Were Soldiers. This time Wallace also directs and the war scenes are directly influenced by Saving Private Ryan. It is bloody and graphic.

However the story is pedestrian. When the action shifts to the family back home it becomes saccharine and even frankly silly as Moore's wife delivers letters to soldiers wives telling them that their husbands have died.

The big explosions are done well. The story even if it is true does not compare with Platoon or Apocalypse Now. The characters are two dimensional, they are stock characters that could had arrived from any multitude of war films.

Ironically, Gibson directed a better war film with Hacksaw Ridge.

Lt. Col. Hal Moore (Mel Gibson) is a proponent of the new Air Cavalry strategy. He's a smart insightful soldier who forms an elite force combining ground forces with helicopters. The war in Vietnam is in its opening stages. The movie starts with their formation back in the States. It climaxes when in 1965, Moore and his men engage the much larger North Vietnamese force in a small battlefield in the first battle of its kind.

Based on Moore's book, the action is compelling and realistic. The home front story doesn't detract from the action. It's important to see Moore's home life. The battle doesn't demonize the enemy, and shows as much as reasonably expected of the opposition. There is a few characters that is allowed to have compelling story lines. Even though the battlefield can be confusing, the movie never is.