Courage Under Fire (1996)

This is one of those war movies where you feel how difficult it is to be a soldier in the middle of a war zone with bravery, cowardice, confusion, orders, and emotional turmoil taking it's toll on the human psyche while yours and your fellow soldiers' lives are perilously hanging in the balance during the first Gulf War. Showing why he is such a classy military actor, Colonel Denzel Washington encapsulates the emotional baggage of being participant as commander of a tank battalion that pulled the trigger in a "friendly-fire" scenario that continues to haunt him when he gets stateside. The PTSD and media backlash has pushed him to near-alcoholism as he is reassigned to basically rubber-stamp the posthumous Medal of Honor intended for the first female to receive the award for heroics in wartime. What transpires, however, is anything but a slam-dunk for the war-worn commander.There are two stories running simultaneously throughout the picture. The first - Denzel as commander of the tank battalion - is dark and understandably confusing. This lends itself to the realism and confusion of actual warfare where warriors are expected to determine friend vs. enemy at night while looking through infrared scopes while under intense fire. It is a daunting, and sometimes overwhelming, task to command.The other story is of a heroic helicopter crew, led by Major Meg Ryan as the pilot, who goes down while trying to protect another downed chopper crew. Over the course of the next 24 hours, the heroes come to terms with who they are under intense enemy fire. What starts out as a clear-cut "give her the medal because the President and our government needs a female hero" turns into a genuine mystery as to whether the pilot truly deserves it or not. There is very little difficulty separating the two stories. What becomes more complicated is how Denzel's character must overcome his own demons in order to objectively give America's most important wartime medal to a deserving/undeserving member of the service. Whether it would be the first female to be awarded this prestigious medal is irrelevant. It is right vs. wrong with a very important military mystery blocking Denzel's path to the easy path of just giving it to her.This is a clever "did she/didn't she" narrative with sides changing their story at nearly every turn. Since there are so few witnesses under intense enemy fire, it's basically one soldier's word vs. another's - and who is telling the truth when one of them is dead. It also is the story of redemption for two very classy, honorable soldiers who deserve more from their country - and their other brothers in arms. Denzel has done this character before, which also makes him a perfect fit for the tortured commander who wants to do the right thing against the powers that be. Meg Ryan was surprisingly excellent at portraying a character who, through the stories changing multiple times, must be both heroic, cowardly, and still maintain dignity and honor in the face of overwhelming odds. It's fairly inspirational stuff.This may not be the best war movie ever made. However, I believe it is definitely worth watching as a night's entertainment. I would place it on the same, well-done, stereotype-shattering heroic level as "Men of Honor". Well cast, well acted, and well done. 8 out of 10.

"Courage under Fire" was one of the earliest films about the First Gulf War of 1991. (When the film was made in 1996, that conflict was simply known as the "Gulf War" as the Second did not occur until 2003). Lieutenant Colonel Nathaniel Serling, a US Army officer, is assigned to determine whether Captain Karen Walden should posthumously receive the Medal of Honor, making her the first woman to be given this award for valour in combat. Walden, the commander of a Medevac helicopter, was killed while attempting to rescue the crew of another helicopter that had been shot down.Serling goes about his task of interviewing the survivors of this incident, and at first everything seems to be straightforward, with the witnesses praising Walden's courage and coolness, but he begins to notice inconsistencies between their testimonies. Everything becomes much more complex when another survivor, Sergeant Monfriez, tells him in no uncertain terms that Walden was a coward and blatantly contradicts what the other witnesses have said. Serling then has to decide where the truth lies. A complicating factor is that he himself has been burdened by guilt ever since he was involved in a friendly fire incident during the war in which a friend was killed.The film was directed by Edward Zwick who was also responsible for "Glory", one of the few great war films of the eighties. "Courage under Fire" represents an interesting development of the war film in the nineties. Although there are exceptions (such as "Catch-22"), most of the very large number of American films about World War II take an unashamedly heroic, patriotic view of that particular conflict. Most of the much smaller number of films about Vietnam take an equally unashamedly pacifist, anti-war position, "The Green Berets" being about the only exception. (Films about Korea tend to fall into both camps. Some, especially those made during or shortly after the war like "The Hunters", take the standard patriotic line. Others take an anti-war stance, notably "M*A*S*H*", which was made during the Vietnam War and has been seen as a disguised film about Vietnam). "Courage under Fire", by contrast, belongs to that small group of films ("The Red Badge of Courage" about the American Civil War is another good example) which seek to illuminate the soldier's life in wartime without pushing either a strongly patriotic or strongly pacifist message. It also can be seen as belonging to another class of films, those which (like Kurosawa's "Rashomon") attempt to tell a story from several viewpoints and show how the same events can be seen in very different ways by different people. The confusion of war, in which no person has access to more than a small part of the total picture, makes this method of storytelling seem particularly appropriate to a war film. It was this very confusion which led to Serling giving the order to fire on one of his own tanks in the heat of battle and which leads to some of the inconsistencies in the evidence about how Captain Walden was killed, although it must be said that some of the witnesses are deliberately lying to cover up their own less than honourable behaviour. When the truth finally emerges it becomes clear that Walden was far from being a coward, but also that not all the witnesses who praised her were giving a truthful account of events. Meg Ryan, Hollywood's official Girl Next Door of the nineties, might have seemed a strange choice to play a tough Army captain, but this was the film which finally showed there was more to Meg's acting talents than the ability to look pretty in romantic comedies. She had tried to show another side to herself in the neo-noir "Flesh and Bone" and the more serious romantic drama "When a Man Loves a Woman", but neither is among her better films. Here, however, she gives a pitch-perfect performance, making Walden tough and determined, but never so much that she becomes unsympathetic. Denzel Washington is also very good as Serling, a very important role as the film is not just about Walden but also about the story of how Serling learns to forgive himself for his friend's death. Of the supporting cast, the best is Lou Diamond Phillips as Monfriez.Unlike the standard World War II film, "Courage under Fire" is not a gung-ho patriotic adventure story; it remains neutral about the rightness or wrongness of the First Gulf War. Unlike the standard Vietnam movie, however, it is not an anti-war diatribe either. It takes a respectful line on the men and, in this case, women of the US Armed Forces who put their lives on the line for their country and gives us a humane and intelligent look at the difficult circumstances of war. A new type of war film for the nineties. 8/10

Just for the record, at least here on IMDb, I think this is an underrated film. And I say that as a person who very rarely likes movies about the military. My dad was in the military most of his adult life, and when he would come home on leave he would always drag me to some war film. I hated it. So, I rarely watch a war movie. But this is a keeper.First, the cast. And let me review the actors in the order of how impressive they were in this film. Denzel Washington, as a Lieutenant Colonel investigating whether a dead female captain should receive the Medal Of Honor, and who himself may have been involved in friendly fire deaths, and who has an alcohol problem, is excellent. Lou Diamond Phillips, as a Staff Sergeant who was at the helicopter crash where the female soldier was killed, is superb here (I never knew he was such a hunk...just for the record). Regina Taylor, as the wife of Washington, is excellent! Meg Ryan, the helicopter pilot who dies, is good, but although her role is pivotal, this is not a very good showcase of her talents, and I do not see her here as the co-star to Denzel Washington. I found Matt Damon rather unimpressive here, but of course, this was just before his breakthrough role that immediately followed this film. Bronson Pinchot was an interesting choice as a White House aide, and he does okay. Michael Moriarty is good as a Brigadier General, as is Scott Glenn as a Washington Post reporter.While I can't say whether or not the Iraq battle scenes were realistic, they impressed me.Despite some inconsistencies, I think the story is a good one. And not a simple one, since the issues that Denzel Washington's character has are complicating his investigation of whether or not Ryan's character should receive the Medal Of Honor. Washington does an admirable job of mixing all these factors and fleshing out the character traits of his role. In fact, this was one of Washington's early films which convinced me that he was an actor that America should treasure.Despite a few flaws, highly recommended.

Sorry, but I cannot stomach a movie that is pro-military when Meg Ryan, a devout Democrat and worshiper of John Kerry, the war-hater and devout liar, and Denzel Washington, a worshiper of President Obama and a devout Democrat who is said to be a devout Christian. One cannot be both...in 2011, the Democrats voted NO to have God inserted in their convention, in spite of the chairman's blatant lie; just one of 100 reasons.So, after my ranting, what about the movie? It is too hard to believe any of it because the actors are not sincere in true life. It would be like having an openly gay person portray Rudolph Valentino unless the movie was a comedy. Courage Under Fire does not pass as a comedy unless one forces one's mind to the point of insanity to see liberal war-hating actors and actresses pretend to be pro-military.