August 8 - Casualties of War

This is a film with a scene that happens today – August 8.  I hope you enjoy this film and watch it tonight.

CASUALTIES OF WAR

On August 8, 1974 [00:43 to 2:22] Max Eriksson is riding the bus in San Francisco when he sees a young Vietnamese girl, which causes him to flash back to an incident during the Vietnam War. During a VC attack Eriksson falls into a tunnel, but is rescued by Sergeant Tony Meserve. The squad relaxes in a village until there is a VC attack and one man is killed. The squad’s leave is cut short and they are sent out on patrol. Meserve, over Eriksson’s objections kidnaps a young Vietnamese girl, Than to be their sex slave. She is beaten and raped by all the men except Eriksson and develops a persistent cough. During an attack on a VC supply depot, Than is stabbed by Diaz, but still tries to escape. Eriksson tries to save her, but she is killed by the rest of the squad. Back a base Eriksson reports what happened, but his superiors try to cover it up. Clark tries to kill Eriksson and eventually a chaplain who hears the story gets an investigation launched.  After a court-martial Meserve, Clark, Hatcher and Diaz are convicted.  Eriksson comes out of his reverie and leaves the bus to return her scarf, which she dropped, to the girl. [1:43:50 to 1:47:07]

This is a good movie. Both Fox as the honorable Eriksson and Penn as the crazy Meserve give good performances. The action sequences are very well done.

At 1:47 we see a newspaper with the headline “Nixon resigning” meaning it is the day before he did resign, as per Nixon: A Life by Jonathan Aitken (Regney Press, Washington, 1993) at page 521.

Producer - Art Linson

Director - Brian De Palma

Screenplay - David Rabe

Runtime -  1 hour 53 minutes

     

Released - August 18, 1989

Starring –

Michael J. Fox as Private Max Eriksson

Sean Penn as Sergeant Tony Meserve

John C. Reilly as Private Herbert Hatcher

Dale Dye as Captain Hill

Don Patrick Harvey as Corporal Thomas E. Clark

John Leguizamo as Private Antonio Diaz

Thuy Thu Le as Oanh

Erik King as Specialist 4th Class "Brownie" Brown

Ving Rhames as Lieutenant Reilly

Dan Martin as Hawthorne

Steve Larson as First Agent

Vyto Ruginis as Prosecutor

Wendell Pierce as MacIntire

Sam Robards as Chaplain Kirk

Maris Valainis as Streibig

Darren E. Burrows as Cherry

Sherman Howard as Court Martial President

John Marshall Jones as M.P.

Holt McCallany as Lieutenant Kramer

Scott Gregory as First Soldier Charlie

Donal Gibson as Soldier

Stephen Baldwin as Soldier