Bat★21 (1988)

Purely Joyful Movie!

One of my all time favorites.

good back-story, and good acting

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

This movie is extremely underrated! Gene Hackman and Danny Glover are excellent (as usual), and an excellent supporting performance from Clayton Rohner! Some haters are posting that it doesn't follow the true story line...come on people, this is Hollywood... have you not learned yet? Cinematography is excellent and its unique in that it does not make war seem cool like so many other ridiculous movies. Danny Glover's best performance outside of the Royal Tenenbaums, i don't care what anyone says lethal weapons are utterly overrated. Gene Hackman has done so much good stuff that this is just a solid performance for him, but David Grant and Clayton Rohner are both great.

In 1969/70 I was a US Army Huey pilot in Northern I Corps of South Vietnam. I was on Hamburger Hill in the A Shau valley, flew in Laos and some in North Vietnam. BAT 21 is the first Vietnam War movie I have ever seen.The truth of the war and how it was done and flown is terrible enough. This movie is way off the mark as to who flew aircraft and how they were flown.When the UH-1N was in a left turn the the camera man made a shot out the left door showing the ground and the shadow of the aircraft, the shadow was a Bell Jet Ranger! Very poor quality. Of course the UH-1N was really a Bell 212, just look at the tail rotor. I have over 4,000 hours of helicopter time, 886 hours of which is in combat.This movie cheapened everyone in the war, I would assume it is the norm rather than the exception.From what I have read about the real Bat 21 I would say that truth is more interesting, shocking and horrible that this 10th rate film.Jimmy L. Ratcliff former US Army Chief Warrant Officer

I thoroughly enjoyed the first 3/4 of this film, and was disappointed by the "action- comedy" ending.The story begins true to the feeling if not the details of the actual incident, and revolves around the relationship between Ham, who discovers what war is really about, and Clark, the Forward Air Controller responsible for coordinating his rescue. Ham's confrontation with what happens on the other end of the bombing, his own foolishness that results in his killing a civilian (a bit unbelievable, but dramatically useful), and the ugliness of war, is well portrayed by Hackman. Danny Glover is excellent and sympathetic, in a film that probably boosted his track to stardom.The special effects were not where the money was spent; seems like they had gas to burn, but no explosives, and the F-5s did not really fit, but these details did not detract from a story well told, until...SPOILER AHEAD -- the last 20 minutes could have been from a cheesy Golan-Globus action movie. Did they change the director? He did well for 90 minutes or so.Instead of the true ending -- more narrow escapes from passing VC, lots of bugs, mud, cuts, anxiety and disappointment, until a SEAL in face paint and an ARVN Ranger appear out of nowhere to lead him to an under-fire rescue LZ, we get a lot of silliness. No way would the Green Giant pilot attempt the pickup under fire against orders when no one else is with him. And he should have been taken for proper interrogation. But that could have been just another disappointing detail.But to have a fixed wing pilot even attempt to fly a helicopter alone was just ridiculous. Stealing an aircraft is not only a career-ender, he would never be able to land (twice) without a Class-A mishap. The whole sequence was stupidly unnecessary. And the pitiful pyrotechnics (little Molotov cocktails) of the final "bombing" sequence looked silly. Having the whole forest go up in a huge bloom of flame (Apocalypse Now) would have been believable, or ripples of plain old explosives throwing mountains of earth in the air. Air strikes are sudden, and incredibly destructive. And the idea of a PBR heading upriver for extraction through a couple of divisions of VC and NVA was just too much.If this movie had finished like it started, it would of honored the memory of the heroes far better.

I'm a fan of war movies and although I still prefer movies about WWI and WWII, I must say that I also like to watch a good Vietnam movie so now and then. "Bat*21" certainly deserves that qualification, because it feels real, never exaggerates in the action scenes and certainly offered me a lot of 'pleasure' while watching it. (I deliberately put the word pleasure between brackets, because I don't want you to think that I find it fun to see people die in a bombardment, being chased through a minefield, being shot in the head... - I'm not a psychopath).Although I have some doubts, the movie claims to be based on a true story. It tells the story of Lieutenant Colonel Iceal Hambleton whose observation plane has been shot down by a V.C. missile. Hambleton is the only survivor and because of his expertise in missile weaponry, it is essential for the US Army to find him before the enemy does. The Vietcong is listening to his radio transmissions and comes very close, but one man, Captain Bartholomew Clark, will do anything to help and support him as good as he can.As I already said, I don't know if everything shown in the movie also happened in reality. I'm not saying that the man has told lies in his book, but Hollywood isn't exactly known for not adding extra's to a story if it makes the movie look better. Still, even if they have done so, I must say that it still is a very nice movie. In my opinion the movie is underrated at this time (6.2/10 after 1,467 votes). Especially thanks to the nice performances of Gene Hackman and Danny Glover, this movie really works well. Especially Danny Glover was a big surprise. When I first saw him in this movie, all I thought was: 'What is that man doing in this movie?' When I think of him, I still associate him with the "Lethal Weapon" movies. But I admit, what he has done in this movie certainly made me forget about that very quickly. I didn't see him as a cop anymore, I soon started to see him as Captain Bartholomew Clark.All in all this is a Vietnam movie that certainly deserves a good rating, because it is one of the better in the genre that I've ever seen. It's perhaps no "Platoon" or "Full Metal Jacket", but it is a very good movie and that's why I give it a 7.5/10.