Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Pretty Good

best movie i've ever seen.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

There were a lot of movies about the Vietnam War, but Peter Davis's documentary "Hearts and Minds" is an even more devastating look at the US's tragic involvement in Indochina. One of the points that the documentary makes is that racism is an essential part of militarism, as the Americans speak in the most demeaning terms of the Vietnamese. Among the other scenes are a pilot's crying after bombing a village, and Vietnamese women are forced to become prostitutes. There was no doubt that the US could no more win the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese, Cambodian and Lao peoples in the 1960s than it could win the hearts and minds of the Afghans and Iraqis in the 21st century.There's a scene in which Bob Hope performs in the White House right before Richard Nixon makes a speech. I always reference that scene to refute any praise of Hope. Much like how the older generation cheered on the war while the younger generation protested it, the older generation saw Hope as a fine comedian while the younger generation saw him for what he really was. Because the war mostly gets ignored in history classes, large numbers of young people today think that the war was worth it (as if there was anything to win). The racist crook Woodrow Wilson's refusal to listen to a young Ho Chi Minh at the Versailles peace negotiations set the stage for our disastrous involvement in Southeast Asia, and we're still living with the effects today. But it's nothing compared to what the Vietnamese are living with: some of the worst birth defects. It was appropriate that "Hearts and Minds" won Best Documentary Feature just as the US puppet government in Saigon was collapsing, and it's one of the documentaries that you MUST see before you die.

I remember watching a few "Yankee" musicals as a kid and enjoying them as silly entertainment (maybe I was the silly one) and clips of them start off this documentary, which jolted my memory and reminded me that they were part of a comprehensive campaign to promote US overseas war efforts. And the rhetoric heard throughout the documentary was almost as "bad" as the Maoist rhetoric of the Cultural Revolution in China, except that the US was by far more polished and convincing. Nixon saying "the US has shown a degree of restraint unprecedented in the annals of war...", by which he probably meant that we should thank the US for not using the atom bombs again, probably ranks near the top the long list of misguided beliefs and "white lies" showcased in this time capsule of 1974 sentiments: when the US thought it had already won a war it was going to lose.So kudos to the director who quickly proceeds to ask the fundamental question: "why do they need us there (Vietnam)?" The honest answer given, only after the director was ridiculed as a "sophomore", actually started all the way from "Sputnik"-- no wonder then that people have to keep asking why they have been involved in this or that war, because the truth was so convoluted. But all these explanations start to sound hollow when the Vietnamese launch into their own centuries-old historical/ narrative tradition: where they have been fighting in defense or for independence against Chinese, then French, then American Imperialism-- it seems that someone conveniently forgot to ask how the Vietnamese saw things at their end, using the justifications that the Vietnamese were just "children", "savages", etc..Made in 1974 after the Paris Peace Accord of 1973, this documentary shows various people in the US reflecting on its involvement in Vietnam and sheds light on why the US didn't get involved again when North Vietnam invaded South Vietnam in 1975: the US never had a clear, consistent or compelling reason or plan to be in Vietnam ("I think we are fighting for the North Vietnamese", says a truck driver) in the first place-- to the point where a veteran says "the reason we went over was to win this war"-- and they thought they had achieved victory in 1973. The US only began to wake up and accept the true nature and effect of their involvement after 1975, when draft dodgers were finally pardoned.

This was one of the most bias documentary films I have ever seen.It was so one sided it couldn't truly be considered good on any level.Shame on anyone who sees this film as a "truth" of the times.The only reason to watch a film like this is for the technical aspects of it.There is nothing redeeming about this film.The director makes the entire Vietnam War seem as though no Americans were even hurt. That all the blood shed happened on one side and not to both sides.It was filmed too close to the epicenter of the action and it is therefore not a true sense of what the war was like.I hope someday people will be able to look at this and be able to take away the awards it received.

This movie points out what is now commonly known. That Viet Nam was a mistake. We never should have been there. Too many people, Americans included, suffered for reasons not clear. This movie gave us the Viet Namese point of view as well. It was very difficult to watch the funeral of the young soldier as his very young son stands there holding his father's picture. The little boy was so overcome with grief that he could barely stand. And an older woman (the soldier's mother?) tried to jump into the grave just before they filled it. Heartrending. The interviews with the injured soldiers was also hard to watch. They knew what was happening but their story was getting covered up at the time. They gave warning that no one heeded. A very important document. Should be required viewing.