Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined

Aedonerre I gave this film a 9 out of 10, because it was exactly what I expected it to be.

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Humbersi The first must-see film of the year.

sykespj As a kid growing up in Australia and the United States during the Vietnam years, it was hard to avoid the fact that something deeply troubling was going on. Our prime minister, Harold Holt, went into the 1966 election with the slogan, "All the way with LBJ". I still remember the graffiti on the playground at the Gold Coast. As a student at the Singapore American School in 1968, all felt duty-bound to choose sides... Humphrey or Nixon.One flight to the States took us right over the top of Nam. You could look down on high and see, far below, American warplanes. Texas was another world. If you were pro-peace, you were labeled a commie, no matter how old you were.This is a documentary about American involvement in Vietnam. It doesn't focus on atrocities committed by the Viet Cong or North Vietnamese regulars, because it is about Americans. The sins of others do not justify your own. The film itself is a slice of history. Made not long after the American withdrawal, it depicts all sides of the debate with remarkable clarity using nothing else but film and interviews.This is not so much a history of the war in Vietnam, as it is an introspective look at what it means to be American. It is quite simply the best documentary on American involvement in Vietnam that I have ever seen.

sol Hard hitting documentary directed by Peter Davis in how the US got itself involved in the War in Vietnam that ended up tearing the country apart. Made in 1974 before the Vetcong guerrillas and North Vietnamese Army overran the country the film shows the pitfalls that the US chose to overlook in getting itself stuck in the mud swamps and jungles that was the Vietnam War.There's really no one US President to blame for getting the country into that bloody mess of a war in that we see it was a team effort from Pres. Truman to Pres. Nixon and every other US Chief Executive, Eisenhower Kennedy & Johnson, in between. The French who were involved in the first Vietnam or Indochina War was soundly defeated by Ho Chi Minh's, known as "The Enlighten One", Viet Minh forces in the bloody and drawn out battle of Dien Bien Phu in May 1954. That jungle battle ended the conflict that resulted in the loss, French and Vietnames military and civilians, of over 700,000 lives. During the almost 8 years of of fighting in Indochina War the US was far from neutral in supporting the French with almost 80% of the arms and money for the French to keep the war going.With the free and UN sponsored elections to unify both north and South Vietnam set to be held in 1956 and Ho Chi Minh being a sure shot of winning them the US under Pres. Eisenhower set up the puppet Diem to be South Vietnam's fist unelected president. This set the stage for the second Vietnam War that was to involved as much as 550,000 US troops and lasting 16 years from 1959 to 1975, the longest war in US history, ending up costing almost 60,000 American lives; Not to mention the some 3 million Vietnamese,from both North & South Vietnam, who perished in it.Among the many persons who were personally involved in the Vietnam war the one who made the biggest impact on me in the movie was former Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford. Clifford in an interview admitted that those Generals and politicians conducting the war had no idea in not only how to win it but who they were fighting against. Everything that they did failed miserably and they ended up stuck in an unwindable war because in their mind by ending it, or withdrawing from the country, would lead to a "Domino Effect" where all of South-East Asia would end up falling into Communists hands. Which to them was worth the enormous loss of life, American & Vietnamese, that this bottomless quagmire of a war was was costing! As it turned out the "Domino Effect" turned out to be pure fiction with no other country in that part of the world turning Communist and Vietnam now a united country being one of the US', next to Communist China, biggest trading partners in Asia!What the film brings out best is how most of the American public finally realized that they've been had in going along with the bankrupt policies of their leaders who conned them, like in the faked and infamous Tonkin Gulf incident, into supporting the war. Taking to the street in massive anti-war demonstrations with hundreds of returning Vietnam war vet participating in them was what really brought the war to an end. But it took almost 6 years from 1966 to 1973 for it to happen! And it was during that time the majority of the almost 60,000 American and 3 million Vietnamese lives lost in the war were snuffed out.In the end the Vietnam War turned out to be a war that many from the Truman Eishenhower Kenndey Johnson & Nixon Administrations who whole hearted supported it at first would now, after all the facts are in about it, like to forget!

teardrop-diamond Hearts and Minds is Peter Davis' look at a pointless war that even the leaders of the United States had trouble comprehending. Vietnam remains perhaps the country's greatest folly, and even if some teachers or history books may say otherwise, it is important to know that the world superpower has its flaws too.Hearts and Minds explores the lives of the South Vietnamese as they were imprisoned and tortured by their own government. This documentary is a testament to the hopelessness and complete and utter inhumanity that guided these actions. Huge numbers of people are led to slaughter.And of course this isn't a pretty picture. Since when has history ever been? This is heartbreaking to look at, but necessary.Nobel Prize winner Eli Wiesel (who survived one of Nazi Germany's most infamous concentration camps) has continued to stress the importance of 'bearing witness,' and Davis' Hearts and Minds does an excellent job at keeping this issue at the forefront of the time (and even today in the still fascinated future) and forces us to acknowledge the atrocities of the period.With intense and powerful imagery, this film is a must see, and it is a brilliant and heart wrenching war record of a topic that goes both ways: there are those who have repeatedly condemned the actions of the United States in this matter (remember Hanoi Jane?) and those who are so fiercely patriotic (or blind—which choice?) that the war seems almost untouchable from their (rather limited) viewpoint.But this mosaic is proof that there is more than meets the eye—the truth must be spoken. Voices must be heard.It is a lesson to be learned that there is a grim defeat in silence.Hearts and Minds refuses to keep quiet and remains one of the best documentaries on this particular era. The Fog of War this is not.

cinemabon Peter Davis tried to help us see our purpose in Vietnam with use of cinematic juxtaposition. In that regard, this film is extremely successful. On the one hand you hear the callous remarks of an aloof man far removed from the intricacies of everyday life in the country of Vietnam. He casually states that life in the orient is "cheap" in his own words. In the next scene, we see the pain and misery (I should say we feel it) that villagers who have lost children experience. It is agonizing to watch. The arrogance on the part of some Americans reduced the enemy to stereotypes carried over from World War II and was made to apply here by over simplistic politicians. The lessons from Vietnam are hard to forget for my generation, who lost so much: our innocence, our trust, and our brethren. When we watched those mistakes take place in Iraq, it pained many of us to relive them all over again. War enacts a terrible toll in terms of lives lost and wounded. Those wounds extend for generations.This review comes at a time when politics once more plays a new important role in the Academy Awards. On the night of his acceptance, Peter Davis complained that the Vietnamese people still suffered at the hands of the American military and pleaded their case during the Oscar telecast. Frank Sinatra came out next and excused the speaker as not being a voice for members of the Academy. Warren Beatty, who next presented, thanked Sinatra as "you old Republican, you!" It displayed the bitter divisions that fracture our democracy along political lines, all started with Vietnam.War has a terrible impact on the people who live in the area of conflict. While soldiers comprise a very small percentage of those involved, it is the citizens who suffer and die the most (most unreported), and whose lives are forever affected. Peter Davis simply tried to help us see the impact of what we do in places so far removed from this "peaceful" nation.