The Boys in Company C (1978)

In 1978 there were five American movies released dealing with the Vietnam War:The Deer Hunter (Michael Cimino) - Coming Home (Hal Ashby) - Who'll Stop the Rain / Dog Soldiers (Karel Reisz) - Go Tell the Spartans (Ted Post) - The Boys of Company C (Sidney Furie)The first two were big box office hits and were awarded with a slew of Oscars. The next three are less known and in the case of The Boys in Company C difficult to find. These movies were released five years after president Nixon ordered the evacuation of American troops from Vietnam. It's interesting to see how Hollywood has rewritten the US involvement in Vietnam at least three times. The first Vietnam movie was The Green Berets (1968) in which John Wayne presented the Vietnam conflict as a noble cause betrayed by the media and the protesters back in the US. Then in the aftermath of the war there was the shameful outrage with Tracks (1976) and Dog Soldiers (1978). The third trend was the tragic mistake/loss of innocence thesis with The Deer Hunter (1978) and Apocalypse Now (1979). In the eighties it became full circle with the Rambo sequels and their imitations and returned to the doubtful The Green Berets judgment. The second half of the eighties became a combination of all these trends.So 1978 was the turning point between the first two trends. The Boys in Company C was released almost 10 years before Full Metal Jacket (1987). Not only do both films have the same structure, but The Boys in Company C also has the first acting role of the most memorable character of Full Metal Jacket: R. Lee Ermey as Sergeant Hartman. R. Lee Ermey was a real Marine Corps Drill Instructor before he became an actor/technical adviser. But the acting in both films are great from a then largely unknown cast.What sets The Boys in Company C apart from other Vietnam movies is that the climax is a not big battle scene but a soccer game. This soccer game could mean life or death for the American soldiers if they throw the game. The message at the end may be a bit naive, but that doesn't make it less true.

Spoilers -- Among Other Things It Includes a Reference To The Scene Toward the End.Early Vietnam movie--flawed, but interesting time piece, 3 February 2002 (This comment was deleted by IMDb based on an abuse report filed by another user) Hollywood in the seventies avoided the Vietnam War, almost as if it didn't exist--until the last few years of the decade when out came a spate like Coming Home, Apocalypse Now, and The Deerhunter. Among the first was this one--which uses the tried and true method of following a number of soldiers through basic training and then into combat (used effectively in Sands of Iwo Jima). Here, there's a variety of archetypes, the jokemeister, the sixties hippie, a criminal from the streets, and the all-American boy. There are a variety of quality in the portrayals (the Drill Instructor is outstanding, putting in a precursor performance that he would reprise in Full Metal Jacket). Stan Shaw as the gangster from the inner city seeking a method of heroin importation puts in a pretty good performance, and handles the characters transformation well.There's actually not that much combat here, and it's hard to say how accurate it is with what it does portray without having that as a personal experience--those who went and fought in Vietnam would be the ones to make that assessment. The real problem with the movie is it's cynicism--its makers probably attempted to make and anti-war movie, where the personal relationships forged in war are its sole redeeming value. But it seems to fail to adequately explain even the basics of Vietnam--not that a movie can ever hope to explain the history, politics, or cultural reasons for Vietnam, but it could have helped to know something about the context these guys faced if we are to understand them as characters.The other serious flaw in the movie is that it can't resolve the situation--a lot of war movies culminate in a final shootout. Not here, in fact, the movie punts--it ends with, of all things, a soccer game. Reminiscent of the silly ending of MASH with its football game. What soccer has to do with Vietnam is mystifying.It may still be worthwhile to watch, mostly because of its status as one of the first efforts by the movie industry to deal with the Vietnam War--other than the "Green Berets", made ten years earlier, Hollywood made some halting steps (Apocalypse Now had very little to do with the day to day fighting , and Coming Home and the Deerhunter seemed more interested in the home front than the daily grind of fighting). Not until Full Metal Jacket (Hue) and Platoon (jungle fighting) did Hollywood seem to get itself together.In that light, this movie is interesting not because it's a great movie--it really isn't, but because of where it is in our cultural history.

This movie was way better than Full Metal Jacket. In FMJ, the Vietnam part seemed tacked on to me, (before they encountered the sniper, they passed up a freaking tank platoon for Christ's sake. It didn't make sense that they didn't make use of the tank to take out the building that the sniper was in.) Plus, I love the Senior DI, Ermy, and the fact that the boot camp was in MCRD San Diego. The war scenes made more sense to me and the character development was a lot stronger in BiC C. As for the soccer scene, one might scoff at it's misplacement in a war film, but it was done in a way that made total sense to someone who knows how Marines are often put in positions and are given orders that contradict the nature of Marine Corps philosophy. I love how the Marines dealt with this dilemma. This movie deserves to be released on DVD. I have no problems dusting off the VCR and playing this movie, but Come on! When there are hundreds of thousands of copies of Paulie Shore's In the Army Now on DVD out there, they really should make Boys in Company C available on DVD.

This is a movie that will make you think. You will not be able to watch this movie and ever think of war, or boot camp, as the same. It is moving and has meaning far beyond the average movie that you'll find nowadays. It starts with men that were drafted for the Marine Corps. It goes through the throngs of boot camp and all the traps that come with it. If you know and remember Full Metal Jacket, you'll immediately recognize the young D.I. in this movie. He was fresh out of the USMC and he WAS a D.I. before playing one for the movie. It made the hair stand up on the back of my neck, thinking back to basic training at MCRD San Diego. IF you can find this movie and you've never seen it, get it. It WILL be the best money you spend on a movie this year. It is a personal favorite of mine and one that everyone should watch at some point.