Movie Review for We Were Soldiers

Summary: A fact-based tale of men under fire, their common acts of uncommon valor, and their loyalty to and love for one another during one of the most savage military battles in U.S. history. On November 14, 1965, in the Ia Drang Valley of Vietnam, in a small clearing called Landing Zone X-Ray, Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore and 400 troopers from the U.S. 7th Air Cavalry are surrounded by 2000 enemy soldiers in what would become the first, and perhaps the worst, major battle of the Vietnam War.

                         Reviews of We Were Soldiers
By Scott Weinberg of Apollo Guide (7/0)
            Perhaps a better celebration of these unfairly dismissed heroes would be a film that isn’t this p...

By Scott Weinberg of Apollo Guide (7/0)
            Perhaps a better celebration of these unfairly dismissed heroes would be a film that isn’t this p...

By Marc Savlov of Austin Chronicle (7/0)
            Fails to bring as much to the table.

By Danny Graydon of BBC (7/0)
            Wallace's emotional message and refreshingly non-demonised enemy make an effective tribute.

By Michael Wilmington of Chicago Tribune (7/0)
            Probably the best thing you can say about We Were Soldiers is that it does justice to an awful co...

By David Sterritt of Christian Science Monitor (7/0)
            Supposedly authentic account of a historical event that's far too tragic to merit such superficia...

                         Reviews of We Were Soldiers
By Larry Carroll of Countingdown.com (7/0)
            ...hides behind carnage in an attempt to seem weighty, but (should not) be taken any more serious...

By Collin Souter of eFilmCritic.com (7/0)
            I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Just because it’s a true story, that doesn’t mean it’s...

By Collin Souter of eFilmCritic.com (7/0)
            I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Just because it’s a true story, that doesn’t mean it’s...

By Erik Childress of eFilmCritic.com (7/0)
            Once you’ve seen it over and over and over again in the movies, there are only so many new places...

By Eric D. Snider of EricDSnider.com (7/0)
            Offers no new insight on the matter, nor do its characters exactly spring to life.

By Eric D. Snider of EricDSnider.com (7/0)
            Offers no new insight on the matter, nor do its characters exactly spring to life.

                         Reviews of We Were Soldiers
By Eugene Novikov of Film Blather (7/0)
            The movie is clearly diluted for mass consumption.

By Eugene Novikov of Film Blather (7/0)
            The movie is clearly diluted for mass consumption.

By Shirley Sealy of Film Journal International (7/0)
            Even the presence of a Hollywood megastar like Mel Gibson doesn’t detract from the vividly authen...

By John R. McEwen of Film Quips Online (7/0)
            ...A gripping, fast-moving film that will be added to the short list of quality movies focused on...

By David Levine of filmcritic.com (7/0)
            Despite its best intentions, We Were Soldiers is just another in a long line of graphic war movie...

By Victoria Alexander of FilmsInReview.com (7/0)
            It is one of the most impressive performances of [Gibson’s] career.

                         Reviews of We Were Soldiers
By Michael W. Phillips, Jr. of Goatdog's Movies (7/0)
            There are some surprising and good things about the film.

By Bob Bloom of Journal and Courier (Lafayette, IN) (7/0)
            We Were Soldiers will inspire you and touch you.

By Kenneth Turan of Los Angeles Times (7/0)
            It's unfortunate that Wallace, who wrote Gibson's Braveheart as well as the recent Pearl Harbor, ...

By Jorge Avila Andrade of Moviola (7/0)
            Presenta los hechos de una manera que recuerda a lo peor de la derecha republicana, asemejándose ...

By Edward Johnson-Ott of NUVO Newsweekly (7/0)
            Informative and thoughtful, presenting a pivotal battle with clarity and all of the people in the...

By Frank Swietek of One Guy's Opinion (7/0)
            Crisply and efficiently made...but ultimately its very old-fashioned earnestness makes it seem a ...

                         Reviews of We Were Soldiers
By Dennis Schwartz of Ozus' World Movie Reviews (7/0)
            This is a soldier's action-war film, that eulogizes them as noble heroes in a questionable war th...

By Dennis Schwartz of Ozus' World Movie Reviews (7/0)
            This is a soldier's action-war film, that eulogizes them as noble heroes in a questionable war th...

By Tor Thorsen of Reel.com (7/0)
            [H]ad I suffered and bled on the hard ground of Ia Drang, I'd want something a bit more complex t...

By Peter Travers of Rolling Stone (7/0)
            Has an impact that transcends politics and some dramatic overreaching by writer-director Randall ...

By Stephanie Zacharek of Salon.com (7/0)
            Mel Gibson fights the good fight in Vietnam in director Randall Wallace's flag-waving war flick w...

By William Arnold of Seattle Post-Intelligencer (7/0)
            ... a harrowingly realistic and gut-wrenching piece of filmmaking ...

                         Reviews of We Were Soldiers
By David Edelstein of Slate (7/0)
            Makes you cry for the hundreds of thousands of men and women who died so pointlessly with Geogheg...

By Ian Waldron-Mantgani of UK Critic (7/0)
            Wallace seems less like he's been burning to tell a war story than he's been itching to somehow t...

By A. O. Scott of New York Times (3/5) Login Required (Login Required)
            Like the best war movies -- and like martial literature going back to the Iliad -- it balances th...

By Phil Villarreal of Arizona Daily Star (3/4) No reference
            A must-see for fans of thoughtful war films and those interested in the sights and sounds of batt...

By Michael Tunison of Boxoffice Magazine (3/4) No reference
            While some will object to the idea of a Vietnam picture with such a rah-rah, patriotic tone, Sold...

By Dan Fazio of Citysearch (3/4) No reference
            The intensely violent battle sequences have an undeniable emotional impact, but how much more of ...

                         Reviews of We Were Soldiers
By Jeff Vice of Deseret News, Salt Lake City (6/1) No reference
            ... an incredibly heavy-handed, manipulative dud that feels all too familiar.

By Susan Stark of Detroit News (3/4) No reference
            By attributing intelligence, bravery and above all, humanity, to enemy forces as well as to U.S. ...

By Staci Layne Wilson of Fantastica Daily (3/4) No reference
            ... a story we haven't seen on the big screen before, and it's a story that we as Americans, and ...

By Derek Tse of Jam! Movies (3/4) No reference
            ... a good, if not entirely fresh, look at war.

By James Sanford of Kalamazoo Gazette (6/1) No reference
            plays like an unbalanced mixture of graphic combat footage and almost saccharine domestic interlu...

By James Sanford of Kalamazoo Gazette (6/1) No reference
            plays like an unbalanced mixture of graphic combat footage and almost saccharine domestic interlu...

                         Reviews of We Were Soldiers
By Manohla Dargis of L.A. Weekly (3/4) No reference
            The Vietnam setting looks authentic enough, but the action is as inert and unpersuasive as Gibson...

By Bob Strauss of Los Angeles Daily News (3/4) No reference
            With We Were Soldiers, Hollywood makes a valiant attempt to tell a story about the Vietnam War be...

By Chuck Rudolph of Matinee Magazine (3/4) No reference
            Exposes a great hypocrisy about many war movies: we honor the lives of those men who died for our...

By Duane Dudek of Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (6/1) No reference
            We Were Soldiers is very much like Black Hawk Down, a postmortem of a real battle that shouldn't ...

By James Rocchi of Netflix (3/4) No reference
            Mel Gibson's Vietnam drama breaks under the weight of its contradictions.

By Gene Seymour of Newsday (3/4) No reference
             At its best, it's Black Hawk Down with more heart. At its worst, it's Rambo- meets-John Ford.

                         Reviews of We Were Soldiers
By Roger Moore of Orlando Sentinel (3/4) No reference
            ... a winning, balanced and compassionate war movie, one with room for both heroism and command i...

By James Kendrick of Q Network Film Desk (3/4) No reference
            Wallace keeps the tension racheted up tight, and he never shies away from the gore of war

By Jack Garner of Rochester Democrat and Chronicle (6/1) No reference
            Despite moments of melodrama, Gibson makes a charismatic, conscientious military leader, though t...

By Eli Sanders of Seattle Times (3/4) No reference
            The film feels formulaic, its plot and pacing typical Hollywood war-movie stuff, while the perfor...

By Eli Sanders of Seattle Times (3/4) No reference
            The film feels formulaic, its plot and pacing typical Hollywood war-movie stuff, while the perfor...

By Dustin Putman of TheMovieBoy.com (3/4) No reference
            As far as war movies go, this is the best studio effort since Terrence Malick's brilliant 1998 pi...

                         Reviews of We Were Soldiers
By Desson Thomson of Washington Post (3/4) No reference
            Goes beyond the familiar.

By Lawrence Toppman of Charlotte Observer (6/1) Not Reachable
            Writer-director Randall Wallace has bitten off more than he or anyone else could chew, and his mo...

By Gary Thompson of Philadelphia Daily News (3/4) Not Reachable
            ... Wallace is smart to vary the pitch of his movie, balancing deafening battle scenes with quiet...

Movie Distributors
Paramount Pictures

Production Companies
Icon Productions

Movie Studios
(USA): Paramount Pictures