The Veteran (2006)

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Powerful

Excellent but underrated film

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The Vietnam War, for some reason, seems to be the favorite subject of veteran Canadian director Sidney J. Furie, who has made at least 5 movies covering various themes of the war over the years. He does deserve credit for making probably the very first serious Vietnam War film (The Boys in Company C) in 1978, and the first movie portraying the service of women in the war (Purple Hearts). Though this movie may not stack up with the operatic likes of "Platoon" and "The Deer Hunter", I actually found myself drawn into this one, right through the twist ending.Now, I'm not a fan of the recent trend in M. Night Shyamalan-style twist endings in one big-budget Hollywood flick after another; if a storyline is compelling enough by itself, it shouldn't require a cop-out ending which makes everything before it null and void. However, with the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth accusations of Presidential candidate John Kerry in 2004, as well as the Presidential campaign of John McCain and the myriad accusations leveled against Obama and Bill Clinton for their past, I did think this ending was kind of interesting and topical. Like the ending of "The Boys in Company C," it encapsulates much of the mixed-up political feelings Americans have about that war and politics in general.The acting here by Bobby Hosea and Michael Ironside is amazingly good. If you watch this without the expectations of a big-budget Hollywood epic, you are much more likely to enjoy it.

I thought that this was not a bad little movie. Actually, it tries to be "big" in scope, with its Vietnam flashbacks that clearly show a lot of time and money was spent in making them feel authentic. The battle scenes and the non-combat scenes in these flashbacks are well done. But to tell the truth, I actually found the present-day sequences in the hotel room with the two men a lot more compelling than those flashback sequences. The acting and drama in the hotel room sequences are very well done, and I was really wanting to find out what secrets were wanting to be revealed. The cast is first-rate, especially Michael Ironside. So give this movie a chance, and be patient whenever the movie flashes back to the Vietnam war - you'll be rewarded in the end.

One of the worst films I've ever seen that purports to be about Vietnam or Veterans. No, wait... it's just a poor film in every way.The writing is painfully bad, the acting is weak, and the scenes in Vietnam (or was it Thailand or the Philippines?) were wasted. If you could get back to Vietnam to film the Majestic hotel, why not something more than that? Virtually the entire film takes place in a hotel room in Saigon with some of the most painful dialogue you'll ever see on screen. It's as if it's trying to be a parody of all bad spy-war films.They obviously did NOT bother is a military consultant or technical adviser for the combat scenes. It would be impossible to write a spoiler because by the end you couldn't care less what happens. It is just awful.

Weak at best. Overacting on Michael Ironside's part (and i usually really like this actor! Flashbacks overused in modern cinema and that is a perfect example. Conspiracy theories, please! Of all the Vietnam flicks i've seen it's the first one that bored me! Pretty images, but nothing special or breathtaking. The ending (no spoiler) is a big letdown and far-fetched. Really it's the perfect example of what action films shouldn't be. All and all, nothing special, weak, boring, the epitome of what certain people view as what men are (or should be?) i dunno, i wouldn't rent it if i were you, unless you suffer from insomnia and are looking for something to put you to sleep.