Actually I was disappointed, not too much since I was very reluctant to watch this Cambodia/Vietnam/US war movie at the first place. Put the DVD in, heard music of 'Imagine' and thought 'sh*t'. Don't get me wrong, I love that song, or at least loved it. Just can't stand such a song in a war movie. Am really really not into war movies. War's too big for a movie. You need a movie to tell you what WAR is like? Of course we know what it is, we just don't want to see, don't want to think. So someone would go watch a war movie and cry omg, it's cruel. And he believes war is THIS cruel, cus deep inside he knows the real thing is a thousand times crueller. Among all the very few war movies I've seen, I only like the first half of Full Metal Jacket and think Catch-22 is very good although I wouldn't like to watch it again.
Back to this movie. I suppose it's about friendship between two men from completely different cultural background in war. But from the first to the last scene, I saw nothing but a man and his faithful dog. Sydney Schanberg, the American reporter, never saw or respected his Cambodian partner (or interpreter or friend or anything) Dith Pran as a human being like himself, and he never will. He knew it and felt bad for it and could do nothing about it. Yeah, Sidney treated Pran well, and I do believe he would do a lot for his Cambodian friend, as I believe the Americans can go to really dangerous places to save their dogs. I don't blame him, really, I just hate him and even the Cambodian guy still thinking it's friendship between two equal men. And I'm not so glad to see it's from Robinson. Writing a war story,especially one involving all-foreign parties is very dangerous. Why did he write such Cambodia/Vietnam/US war screenplay as a Brit?
Well, it's ok, since Bruce Robinson himself is only one of the Westerns, like Sydney (isn't this comment also stereotype? whatever). I'd keep my love for him, for the one and the only Withnail & I.
btw , one good thing, Malkovich's role is the least sickening one to me .
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