Casualties of War is a 1989 American war drama film directed by Brian De Palma and written by David Rabe, based primarily on an article written by Daniel Lang for The New Yorker in 1969, which was later published as a book.

  • Sean Penn as Sergeant Tony Meserve (based on David Edward Gervase) Film rights were bought by David Susskind who was to produce the film for Warner Bros. Pete Hamill wrote a script and Jack Clayton was to direct. However, the film was not made. In the meantime, Michael Verhoeven made his film based on the incident, titled o.k.. Verhoeven's film was entered to the Berlin Film Festival in 1970, causing so much controversy among the judges that the festival was shut down for that year with no awards given. De Palma was at that festival with his film Dionysus in '69. In the late 1970s, Susskind announced he would make the film for ABC. This did not happen.

In 1979, David Rabe mentioned the project to Brian De Palma, who was interested but was unable to raise the money to finance it. Some years later Rabe had written a script, and De Palma attached Michael J. Fox and Sean Penn as actors. They almost succeeded in getting the film financed at Paramount Pictures, but ultimately decided not to proceed when the budget went from $17 million to $20 million. De Palma then went on to make The Untouchables first, which was a big hit; Dawn Steel had liked the project at Paramount, and when she became head of production at Columbia Pictures, Casualties of War was the first film she green-lit.

"Historically Vietnam War movies have been very profitable," said Steel. "All of them. Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, Apocalypse Now, The Deer Hunter. You're looking at movies that have never been not [just] pretty successful, but very successful. The foreign numbers have been extraordinary." The bridge location was filmed in Kanchanaburi, Thailand, the same as for Bridge on the River Kwai. This film was Fox's third major dramatic role. He had previously starred in Light of Day and Bright Lights, Big City. John Leguizamo, who appeared in his first major film role, would later star with Penn in 1993's Carlito's Way, another De Palma vehicle.

Stephen Baldwin was originally cast as Herbert Hatcher, but was fired after only a few days of filming. He still appears in some scenes, his role reduced to that of an unnamed character. Baldwin later theorized that his firing was due to him clashing with De Palma after questioning Penn's use of a New York accent. Baldwin was replaced by John C. Reilly, who was already on location as an extra. This film marked Reilly's screen debut; he worked with Penn again in We're No Angels, State of Grace and The Thin Red Line.

"Let's be honest," said Fox at the time. "If this movie makes a buck and a half it's going to be things like Bikini's Away for me. But to fail doing something unexpected is no disgrace. To fail doing the ordinary is a disaster. This movie is about how much you will risk if you have nothing to gain." This version has the original 113-minute running time. An extended cut of the film was released on DVD in 2006, that contains two scenes cut from the original release. One has Max Eriksson (Fox) being interrogated by the two investigators (Greg Larson and John Linton), and the other is a defense attorney (played by uncredited Gregg Henry) trying to discredit Eriksson during the trial. This extended version has a running time of 119 minutes.

Reception

Box office

Casualties of War opened in 1,487 theaters, and ranked number 4 in box office for the first week of its release. It went on to gross $18.7 million.

Critical response

The film holds an 82% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 50 reviews. The site's consensus states: "Casualties of War takes a harrowing plunge into the Vietnam War with a well-acted ensemble piece that ranks among director Brian De Palma's more mature efforts." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 75 out of 100, based on 24 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.

Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four and wrote, "More than most films, it depends on the strength of its performances for its effect—and especially on Penn's performance. If he is not able to convince us of his power, his rage and his contempt for the life of the girl, the movie would not work. He does, in a performance of overwhelming, brutal power." Vincent Canby of The New York Times stated, "Casualties of War moves toward its climax so inevitably and surely that the courts-martial, which are the film's penultimate sequence, are no less riveting for the theatrical way in which they have been compressed." He also called Penn's performance "extremely fine" and wrote of Fox that he "remains firmly in character" in a "difficult" role. Todd McCarthy of Variety wrote, "A powerful metaphor of the national shame that was America's orgy of destruction in Vietnam, Brian DePalma's film is flawed by some punch-pulling but is sure to rouse strong audience interest, even if the Columbia release will be a bitter pill for many." Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film three stars out of four and called it "a major effort in a minor key because of the limitations of the simple story." Michael Wilmington of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "Casualties of War is DePalma's 19th movie and easily his best. His detractors saw his Hitchcock-pastiche thrillers as manipulative and sadistic, but here he's not dealing with stylish slashers or bloody set-pieces. He doesn't have to reach for a shock. He's dredging up a deeper horror: the hell that lies beneath every man's skin, waiting to erupt." Hal Hinson of The Washington Post praised it as "a film of great emotional power" and "one of the most punishing, morally complex movies about men at war ever made."

De Palma invited Steven Spielberg to a private screening of the film, and after the screening ended, Spielberg said to Columbia Pictures executive Dawn Steel, "You'll be thinking about this for a week." The film was criticized by Vietnam veterans' groups. Quentin Tarantino has hailed the film as "the greatest film about the Vietnam War."

At the time of the film's release, David Rabe disassociated himself from it, saying that De Palma had not been faithful to his script.

Awards

Wins

  • Political Film Society Award for Peace; 1990

Nominations

  • Golden Globes: Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score – Ennio Morricone; 1990
  • Motion Picture Sound Editors: Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing – Sound Effects – Maurice Schell; 1990

See also

  • o.k., a 1970 film also depicting the Incident on Hill 192
  • The Visitors, a 1972 film also depicting the Incident on Hill 192
  • Redacted, a 2007 film also directed by Brian De Palma depicting similar war crimes carried out by U.S. soldiers in Iraq

References