Casualties of War (1989)
Wrapping up the Vietnam-movies for now, and with an interesting thing from Brian de Palma. I found it somewhat offputting at first, as it used overly emotional music cues and spelling its apparent message out in bold letters. Then I remembered that is a de Palma movie, and then that style made sense again. On the surface it is a traditional war movie, and seemingly far from his sleazy campy sexy thrillers, but he still uses similar cinematic choices - almost falling into campy and exploitation mode. It is definitely a bit weird to see that in a rather serious and unsettling war movie about soldiers raping an innocent civilian, but I must admit I did like it for just that - because it is something different. De Palma has created a traditional war movie - just sidestepped a little bit from the rest of the pack. Thankfully it keeps the respect for the heavy subject matter, providing enough pathos to the situation.
The only thing that didn’t quite work for me was Michael J. Fox. He isn’t entirely convincing in his role. Thankfully Sean Penn is frighteningly scary to make up for it.
Rating: 4