Classic Movie Review Hamburger Hill

Hamburger Hill (1987) 

Directed by John Irvin 

Written by James Carabatsos

Starring Michael Boatman, Don Cheadle, Dylan McDermott, Courtney B. Vance 

Release Date August 28th, 1987 

Published August 29th 2017 

There are those who claim that Hamburger Hill is the least remembered of 80s Vietnam movies, a niche genre all its own in that decade, because it was a right wing, reactionary movie intended to defend soldiers. Time has a way of changing perceptions and now that Hamburger Hill is turning 30 years old, it’s interesting to look back on the film and talk about the perceptions of the film and how they’ve evolved over the years and the ways in which guilt, shame and history have altered the way many view Vietnam.

Hamburger Hill tells the story of one company in the midst of a battalion ordered to take a single hill from the North Vietnamese. The hill would come to be called Hamburger Hill because meat may be all that’s left of a soldier after he gets blown away while climbing this ungodly, muddy, and eventually blood-soaked hill. It’s grisly and part of the film’s reputation comes from what the title implies, a gruesomeness that put audiences off just from the title.

The film is gruesome as director John Irvin doesn’t hold back on the blood and guts but where the film’s reputation is somewhat misguided is the notion that that is all Hamburger Hill was, just blood and guts. The film actually takes time to build toward the blood guts. Hamburger Hill has a slow build where you take the time to get used to the young faces and personalities preparing to die on the hill. It’s not until the film’s remarkable third act that the gruesomeness moves to the foreground.

Until the third act the film is relatively tame in terms of violence. Instead we get a warts and all look at these soldiers whom we watch become more and more detached from life back at home and unmoored from the reality around them because death seems so close. The film shines a harsh light on the reality of Vietnam, the way the soldiers were mistreated to the point where us against the world was the only mentality that made any sense.

While people back home accused these soldiers of being bloodthirsty killers, the reality was so much more complicated than that. These were men who were abandoned in Vietnam. Whereas people like Patton, McArthur, and Eisenhower had the weight and experience to give soldiers courage and purpose, the soldiers of Vietnam are rudderless, tools of the government abandoned by a society crumbling from the optimism of the 50s into the greed infested era to come where the divide between rich and poor was often defined by those who went to Vietnam and those rich enough not to have to.

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review: Ben is Back

Ben is Back (2018) 

Directed by Peter Hedges 

Written by Peter Hedges 

Starring Julia Roberts, Lucas Hedges, Courtney B. Vance 

Release Date December 7th, 2018 

Published December 4th, 2018 

Ben is Back is a day in the life drama about a family dealing with one member's drug addiction. It's about a mother and a son and the lifetime’s worth of trauma that can be inflicted in such short amounts of time because of drugs. Writer-Director Peter Hedges has trod upon this ground before with difficult relationships between parents and children with the wonderful Piece of April being a strong example of his talent. 

Ben is Back stars Lucas Hedges as Ben and Julia Roberts as Ben’s mom, Holly. Ben has been in rehab for about three months and has much more time left there but he’s somehow arrived back home. The tension is immediate as Ben’s sister, Ivy (Kathryn Newton) is alarmed to see him out of rehab. Holly, however, could not be happier to have him home. It’s Christmas and Holly is overjoyed to have her oldest son home, especially after he passes an at home drug test. 

As excited as Holly is to have Ben home she nevertheless hides all of the prescription drugs and valuables. Ben has a history of having broken into the home in the past to steal things to sell for drugs. Holly’s husband, Neil (Courtney B. Vance) is suspicious and thinks Ben should go back to rehab. After some guilty feelings however, he relents to let Ben stay the night and attend a Christmas play that his younger siblings are in at church. 

When the family gets back from church, they find the house has been broken into and their dog is gone. Ben knows who did it and wants to get him back. The film then follows him into a tour of his past misdeeds as he searches through his own history for the person who took the family dog. Mom chases after, concerned that the search could lead him back to drugs, a concern that grows deeper as the hours pass. 

Ben is Back takes place over a single day, Christmas eve. The story is tightly contained and well told. Each of these actors is exceptionally well cast with Julia Roberts giving her all as the grieving, terrified mother. Lucas Hedges continues to be one of our most compelling young actors. He makes smart choices and here, working with his father, Peter Hedges, he delivers a deeply affecting performance. 

Ben is Back is melodrama, to be sure, but it is solid and well meaning melodrama. As this day passes we can’t help but get caught up in the lives of these characters and the small signifiers of their lives together. I really loved the performance of Kathryn Newton whose mixture of fear and hope for her brother is palpable. Newton’s Ivy has the perspective that her mother lacks and she’s a terrific counterpoint to Vance’s character as well as she’s willing to give Ben more of a chance while reserving a good deal of suspicion and fear. 

I have no experience with drugs personally. I have never used drugs or helped anyone obtain them. There is a reason for that: have you seen the places people go to get and use drugs? Honestly, crack houses and dirty cold riversides are the spots in Ben is Back along with a dangerous looking neighborhood and a very shady looking pawn shop. I can’t understand how anyone would want to go to places like these. 

Ben is Back is certainly effective in setting, reminding us of the places that drugs can take even someone like Ben who had every advantage and still could not stay clean. The film doesn’t spend much time analyzing Ben, it’s more about observing Ben and his family and their dynamic and how this one day is unfolding. That tight focus works for the movie and the day in the life style is absorbing. 

Ben is Back is being released in time for the Academy Awards and you can sense that this has the aim of an awards drama. That said, Lucas Hedges is much more likely to get attention for his role as a young gay man forced into gay conversion therapy in Boy Erased than he is here. The Oscar hopes of Ben is Back likely fall on Roberts who hasn’t had this kind of spotlight on her since Eat, Pray, Love. It would come as no surprise to see her name called on nomination day.