This film used to be on the ‘weekend afternoon movie’ rotation and was highly recommended by my boss, a Vietnam veteran. The movie is about a ragtag group of pilots who were recruited to help run secret military operations in Laos and Cambodia during the Vietnam War.
Mel Gibson and Robert Downey Jr. star as two of these pilots. There’s decent money to be made in running these operations, but they question whether it’s worth it at times to stick their necks out like they do. Ultimately they happen to discover that a US military officer is working with the enemy to secure a substantial amount of heroin trafficking.
Downey and Gibson end up cracking the case while putting themselves in mortal danger a lot. It’s based on true events, but paints an even nastier image of the Vietnam War, as it makes our military looks corrupt. And a big problem with the film is that it doesn’t quite feel like a Vietnam War movie.
It looks like Vietnam and it sounds like Vietnam, but it doesn’t feel like Vietnam. Perhaps because no one is walking around in retro military apparel, and maybe they characters hair and clothing styles look too current, but something is amiss, and that sucked me out of the film experience a good bit.
It’s an interesting movie, but it’s not fully engrossing nor fully engaging.
This film used to be on the ‘weekend afternoon movie’ rotation and was highly recommended by my boss, a Vietnam veteran. The movie is about a ragtag group of pilots who were recruited to help run secret military operations in Laos and Cambodia during the Vietnam War. 
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