The Green Berets

The Green Berets is a Vietnam War movie that feels like a WWII movie.

Most movies about the Vietnam War, from Go Tell the Spartans to Apocalypse Now to Platoon, speak to the war with cynicism, sorrow, or some combination of the two.  The Green Berets, however, seems almost triumphalist in comparison.  It’s really two stories: one a “men holding out against impossible odds” tale and the other a “men on a mission” yarn, connected only by the fact that both stories feature some of the same characters.  Neither story focuses on what Green Berets actually do, which mostly revolves around the training and professionalization of the partner nations’ military forces.

But that’s ok, really.  Why?  Well, first, because it stars John Wayne, who may be the greatest star the medium has yet to produce.  Second, because both stories get told rather well.  I understood the geography, motivations, and tactical situations of both stories, I got where the characters were coming from, and I invested in their journeys about as much as I do with any action picture.

And that’s what this is: a straight-up war movie.  Not much to chew on, but well put together and a fine Saturday afternoon on the couch.

Flyboys

You’ll like Flyboys if you like aviation history.  You’ll like Flyboys if you like “historical recreation” movies.  You won’t like Flyboys if you like, y’know, good movies.

In WWI, France established the Lafayette Escadrille.  Think of it as a Foreign Legion, but with American pilots.  This film is, generally, based on their story.  Many of the people portrayed here really existed, and many of the things we see them do actually happened.  So, hey, so far so good.

But here’s the problem: the screenplay’s just too tight.  Every fact about the escadrille’s planes that we learn early in the film becomes important in combat later on.  The love story feels like a detour from the plot.  We predict nearly every beat and, though the planes look pretty and the uniforms crisp, this film offers no suspense, no surprise, nothing that we expect in narrative cinema.  This feels like a story that’s hitting all the marks from one of those screenwriting books, and it certainly has the best intentions of hagiographying the Corps.  But there’s no soul here, no fuzziness, nothing that makes it feel like it’s about real people and not just lists of traits noted on index cards.

Nevertheless, I like aviation history.  I like  “historical recreation” movies.  Flyboys wasn’t much good, but it did teach me something about its world.  I guess there’s that.