In 1972, a group of soldiers in Vietnam carry one of their wounded during the platoon's evacuation to the helicopters, but they are left behind as the helicopter carrying "Blaster", "Sailor", and Wilkes departs the hot landing zone.
In the early 1980s, retired Marine Colonel Jason Rhodes is obsessed with finding his son Frank, an Army Lieutenant listed as "missing in action" since 1972. After 10 years of searching Southeast Asia and turning up several leads, Rhodes believes that Frank is still alive and being kept in Laos as a prisoner of war.
After petitioning the United States government for help, but receiving none, Colonel Rhodes brings together a disparate group of Vietnam War veterans, including some who were a part of Frank's platoon: the demolitions expert Blaster; the "tunnel rat" Wilkes who suffers from PTSD; and the machine gunner Sailor. Additionally, two helicopter pilot acquaintances of Rhodes, Distinguished Flying Cross recipient Johnson, and Charts, join the group. Former Force Recon Marine Kevin Scott joins the team and later turns out to be the son of a pilot who was shot down in Vietnam and listed as MIA.
With the financial backing of good friend and rich oil businessman McGregor, whose son served in Frank's platoon and is also listed among the missing, the men train near Galveston, Texas in preparation to undertake a rescue mission at a remote POW camp in Laos. As the team arrives in Southeast Asia, the CIA, fearing an international crisis from Rhodes' actions, intercepts him in Bangkok and confiscates his weapons and equipment.
Still determined to rescue their comrades, the team members put together their expense money given to them by McGregor to purchase replacement weapons and supplies. Rhodes contacts an acquaintance, deposed local drug baron Jiang, who joins the expedition with his two daughters Lai Fun and Mai Lin. Jiang manages to supply them with outdated but capable World War II-era weapons. In the course of the expedition, Charts gradually forms a relationship with Lai Fun.
Near the Laotian border, the group is attacked by a border patrol unit and Mai Lin is killed. Later, the group divides: Rhodes leads Charts, Sailor, Johnson, and Lai Fun as the "air team" to a helicopter compound to secure escape transportation, while Jiang, Blaster, Scott, and Wilkes scout out the prison camp as the "ground team." The ground team later discovers four Americans among the prisoners, but are unable to ascertain Frank's whereabouts.
The teams spend the night preparing before commencing the attack the next morning. Blaster sets up demolition charges, while Rhodes and his team discover that the air base is not where they expected it to be. Hiking through the jungle, they find it, get the choppers and take off, but are late in arriving at the camp. Blaster makes the decision to blow his charges to prevent the prisoners from leaving the camp, even though the choppers haven't arrived, sacrificing his life in the process. In a heated battle, they manage to spring the prisoners, among them McGregor's son, but Frank is not among them. Jiang is killed during gunfire from the patrol guards during the attack. Upon the surviving team and POWs escaping from the area, the patrol guards attempt to shoot down the helicopter by rocket launcher. Before they can, Sailor, who was mortally wounded in a guard tower, pulls the pin on his grenade and jumps off the tower, killing himself and all the other guards around the tower. The chopper escapes the area safely with Rhodes, Wilkes, Charts, Johnson, Lai Fun, and the 4 American POWs in the area.
McGregor's son recognizes Rhodes, McGregor informs Rhodes that Frank became ill soon after his capture and died, despite McGregor's and the other POWs attempts to nurse him back to health. It is revealed that Frank was the soldier who stopped to carry a wounded McGregor during the platoon's evacuation to the helicopters in 1972. McGregor tells Rhodes that Frank "saved his life that day."
Stateside, the group is joyously welcomed by their families with media attention and fanfare. Finally finding closure about Frank, Rhodes embraces his wife, Helen upon arrival.
The film began with a screenplay by actor Wings Hauser, who says he was inspired by the stories of a childhood friend, Gary Dickerson, who had been to Vietnam. "I saw that he had left something behind in Viet Nam and that triggered the whole thing," said Hauser. "And then I became aware of the MIA and the POW situation and said well that will be the excuse to go back to Nam and get the POWs, but what they’re really going back for is their own clarity and their own integrity right? And that’s the story. That’s the whole film."[2]
Hauser says it took 18 months to write the script[2] which he sold to Paramount. The film had at least five title changes, including Last River to Cross.[3]
John Milius became attached as producer. The script was rewritten by Joe Gayton. Hauser lost screenplay credit in arbitration however he received sole "Story by" credit. In 1989, Hauser said, without restrictions: "John Milius is a scumbag right-wing bastard and I can't wait for his day to die! That son of a bitch! The (other) guy who got the credit, he was a punk! I don't think he’s sold anything since and I have and he's a joke!"[2]
Paramount sent Gayton's script to director Ted Kotcheff late in January 1983. The following month it came out that James Gritz, a former lieutenant colonel in the Green Berets (and the man that both the characters Rambo and Hannibal Smith are based on[according to whom?]), had led a secret mission into Laos the previous November to search for MIA American soldiers which ended when they were ambushed by Laotian soldiers. Kotcheff said "We assiduously avoided anything in our story similar to Gritz. Our research amazingly showed there were some 30 groups training for similar missions."[1]
Kotcheff said that Milius did write "two or three scenes" as well as making "a number of very creative suggestions" on the script. Among the scenes Milius wrote included one where Hackman gives a speech to the other soldiers about Vietnam being like a company that has gone bankrupt. "It was a wonderful speech," said Kotcheff, adding Milius "did write under pressure but mainly he functioned as a producer."[4]
Milius said he wanted James Arness to play the lead role rather than Gene Hackman.[5]
Filming
Filming started June 6, 1983. The Laotian POW camp that forms the climax of the film was built on a private ranch in the Lumahai Valley on the island of Kauai, Hawaii, and was filmed in early August, 1983. The opening scene depicting the Vietnam War was filmed a short distance away in a rice paddy, two miles (3.2 km) from central Hanalei, Hawaii, and 200 yards (183 m) from the Kuhio Highway (Route 56). Additional parts of the film were shot in: Salt Lake City, Utah, Sun Valley, California, and Castaic, California (which served as the training camp).[6]
The helicopters used in the film were purchased (as opposed to rented) and repainted, since the United States Department of Defense was unwilling to rent out the production military-spec Bell UH-1N Iroquois or Bell 206B Jet Ranger helicopters, due to the apparent "anti-government" nature of the film.[citation needed]
Milius hired a composer without Paramount's consent and studio chief Jeffrey Katzenberg overruled Milius.[7]
Marketing
Paramount had originally prepared an advertising campaign that was "factual and rather somber and centred on the plight of prisoners of war", according to one report.[1] However after the marketing department saw the film they decided to create an entirely new campaign. The poster showed a moment invented for the campaign with a soldier (McGregor's son) being carried by another soldier (Sailor) with the copy line: "C'mon, buddy, we're going home." "We were looking to appeal to males on an emotional level", said Paramount's head of marketing, Gordon Weaver. "We were offering them an attainable fantasy. We'd all like to think that we can be heroes, that we would leave our jobs and families to do something really terrific for our friends."[1]
Reception
Box office
The film was a box-office hit, one of the top-earning films of 1983.[1] This was considered a surprise at the time because of the film's lack of stars and the fact it had to compete with Scarface and Sudden Impact. Gordon Weaver, Paramount's president of marketing, thought the film "was successful because of the emotional impact of the ending. The emotional ending really makes you feel terrific."[1]
Kotcheff said: "If we knew the secret of a film's success, we'd all be very wealthy. But I think it's partly the strong emotional tug of the father-son relationship."[1]
Critical response
Critical reception of the film was mixed, with a 60% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on reviews from 10 critics.[8]
Rambo is an American media franchise centered on a series of action films featuring John J. Rambo. The five films are First Blood (1982), Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985), Rambo III (1988), Rambo (2008), and Rambo: Last Blood (2019). Rambo is a United States Army Special Forces veteran played by Sylvester Stallone, whose Vietnam War experience traumatized him but also gave him superior military skills, which he has used to fight corrupt police officers, enemy troops and drug cartels. First Blood is an adaptation of the 1972 novel First Blood by David Morrell.
Rambo: First Blood Part II is a 1985 American action film directed by George P. Cosmatos from a story by Kevin Jarre, and a screenplay by James Cameron and Sylvester Stallone, who also reprises his role as Vietnam War veteran John Rambo. A sequel to First Blood (1982), it is the second installment in the Rambo franchise, followed by Rambo III. It co-stars Richard Crenna, who reprises his role as Colonel Sam Trautman, along with Charles Napier, Julia Nickson, and Steven Berkoff.
Missing in action (MIA) is a casualty classification assigned to combatants, military chaplains, combat medics, and prisoners of war who are reported missing during wartime or ceasefire. They may have been killed, wounded, captured, executed, or deserted. If deceased, neither their remains nor grave have been positively identified. Becoming MIA has been an occupational risk for as long as there has been warfare.
Hamburger Hill is a 1987 American war film set during the Battle of Hamburger Hill, a May 1969 assault during the Vietnam War by the U.S. Army's 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry, 101st Airborne Division, on a ridge of Dong Ap Bia near the Laotian border in central Vietnam. The ridge was a well-fortified position, including trenchworks and bunkers, of the North Vietnamese Army. U.S. military records of the battle refer to the mountain as "Hill 937," its map designation having been derived from the high elevation of the hill at 937 meters (3,074 ft).
Hugh Clowers Thompson Jr. was a United States Army officer, serving as a warrant officer in the 123rd Aviation Battalion of the 23rd Infantry Division. He is credited with ending the Mỹ Lai Massacre of the South Vietnamese village known as Sơn Mỹ on March 16, 1968, alongside and hierarchically above Glenn Andreotta and Lawrence Colburn.
Bat*21 is a 1988 American war drama film directed by Peter Markle, and adapted from the book by William C. Anderson, novelist and retired United States Air Force colonel. Set during the Vietnam War, the film is a dramatization based upon the rescue of a U.S. air navigator shot down behind enemy lines in Vietnam. The film stars Gene Hackman and Danny Glover with Jerry Reed, David Marshall Grant, Clayton Rohner, Erich Anderson and Joe Dorsey in supporting roles.
Estimates of casualties of the Vietnam War vary widely. Estimates can include both civilian and military deaths in North and South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.
Lawrence Manley Colburn was a United States Army veteran who, while serving as a helicopter gunner in the Vietnam War, intervened in the March 16, 1968 Mỹ Lai massacre.
Military Assistance Command, Vietnam – Studies and Observations Group (MACV-SOG) was a highly classified, multi-service United States special operations unit which conducted covert unconventional warfare operations before and during the Vietnam War.
Gerald Dwight "Wings" Hauser is an American actor and occasional director. He received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for his supporting role in Tough Guys Don't Dance (1987).
Reb Brown is an American former football player and actor. Born in the Los Angeles area, Brown played football in high school and University. He first appeared on film and television in the early 1970s, playing minor or supporting roles up until 1979, where he played Captain America in two made-for-tv films.
1st Reconnaissance Battalion is a reconnaissance battalion in the United States Marine Corps. It is a stand-alone battalion with no parent regiment. Instead, it falls directly under the command of the 1st Marine Division. 1st Recon Bn is located at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in San Diego, California.
Flight of the Intruder is a 1991 war film directed by John Milius, and starring Danny Glover, Willem Dafoe, and Brad Johnson. It is based on the novel of the same name by former Grumman A-6 Intruder pilot Stephen Coonts. The film received negative reviews upon release, and was Milius's final theatrical release as a director.
Operation Homecoming was the return of 591 American prisoners of war (POWs) held by North Vietnam following the Paris Peace Accords that ended U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.
Duane Whitney Martin was an American Air Force officer and prisoner of war during the Vietnam War. He was killed by locals two and a half weeks after he and Dieter Dengler escaped from a Pathet Lao prison camp.
Apocalypse Now is a 1979 American epic war film produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The screenplay, co-written by Coppola, John Milius, and Michael Herr, is loosely based on the 1899 novella Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, with the setting changed from late 19th-century Congo to the Vietnam War. The film follows a river journey from South Vietnam into Cambodia undertaken by Captain Willard, who is on a secret mission to assassinate Colonel Kurtz, a renegade Special Forces officer who is accused of murder and presumed insane. The ensemble cast also features Robert Duvall, Frederic Forrest, Albert Hall, Sam Bottoms, Laurence Fishburne and Dennis Hopper. Harrison Ford, who at the time of filming was not yet a major star, appears in a minor role.
The Vietnam War POW/MIA issue concerns the fate of United States servicemen who were reported as missing in action (MIA) during the Vietnam War and associated theaters of operation in Southeast Asia.
At the start of 1971 South Vietnamese troops continued operations against the North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and Vietcong (VC) base areas in eastern Cambodia. The ill-conceived and poorly executed Operation Lam Son 719 against PAVN supply lines in eastern Laos showed the weaknesses within the South Vietnamese military command and the limited ability of South Vietnam's armed forces to conduct large-scale combined arms operations. The U.S. continued its unilateral withdrawal from South Vietnam despite the lack of any progress in the Paris Peace Talks and by November U.S. forces had ceased offensive operations. The U.S. withdrawal and antiwar sentiment within the military led to an ongoing decline in morale and discipline within the U.S. forces and growing drug use, particularly of heroin. As U.S. combat units withdrew, security in their former operational areas deteriorated and the PAVN/VC began a series of attacks on ARVN positions in Quảng Trị province and the Central Highlands. In Cambodia the Cambodian government continued to lose ground to the PAVN despite extensive U.S. air support and training and periodic attacks into Cambodia by the ARVN. While the bombing of North Vietnam had ceased in November 1968, U.S. aircraft continued to conduct reconnaissance flights over the North and responded to radar-tracking and antiaircraft fire with "protective reaction" strikes which numbered more than 100 by the year-end and culminated in a five-day bombing campaign in late December.
Theodore Lane Sampley was an American Vietnam War veteran and activist. He primarily advocated for those servicemen still considered missing in action or prisoners of war (POW-MIA) as of the end of hostilities in 1975. A staunch political conservative, he also ran for local political office several times. He is credited with the research that identified Air Force Lt. Michael Blassie as the Vietnam fatality buried at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and for his role in organizing the annual Rolling Thunder motorcycle event in Washington. In Kinston, North Carolina, where he lived for much of his adult life, he was known for his local civic activism, most notably his effort to build a replica of the Confederate ironclad CSS Neuse, the only full-size replica of a Confederate ironclad, in the city's downtown.
Jerry Michael Tate Shriver, also known by his nickname "Mad Dog", was a master sergeant in the United States Army, Green Beret, and served in the MACV-SOG. Shriver served in the Vietnam War and took part in operations along the Ho Chi Minh trail, Cambodia and Laos from 1966 to 1969. He also served in West Germany as part of a long range patrol unit and in Taiwan. He was described as a "warrior" by his peers and earned many medals and awards. He was known for being a brave, effective soldier, often successful in classified special operations missions in North and South Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.
↑ Tarantino, Quentin (11 April 2020). "Tarantino on Milius". The New Beverly Cinema. Archived from the original on 12 April 2020. Retrieved 12 April 2020.
↑ D'Arc, James V. (2010). When Hollywood came to town: a history of moviemaking in Utah (1sted.). Layton, Utah: Gibbs Smith. ISBN9781423605874.
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