Courage Under Fire Download Movie Free

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Two fictional combat stories come together in this film set during the Gulf War (Aug. 1990-Feb. 1991) and afterwards. LCol Nat Serling is haunted by a mistake he made that cost the lives of a friend and his tank crew. He investigates the recommended Medal of Honor for Capt. Karen Walden, who was killed after her rescue helicopter was shot down. Conflicting reports lead him to probe deeper to uncover the truth about Walden and all of her crew, who survived. In the process, he comes to grips with his own demons.
A U.S. Army officer, despondent about a deadly mistake he made, investigates a female chopper commander's worthiness for the Medal of Honor.
Nat Serling returns from the Gulf war having been involved in a friendly fire incident. Even though he is cleared, he still carries the guilt but is looked after by the army and helped into a comfortable job in the Pentagon. He is assigned to assess the nomination of Captain Karen Walden for the medal of honour an seemingly open and shut case that everyone wants to be passed for the public relations opportunity of awarding a woman captain the posthumous medal. However, when Serling starts to investigate he finds some minor differences in the stories and the more he pushes the survivors the more the story starts to fall apart. Despite the pressure from his superiors, Serling continues to dig for the truth. Looking back at this film now it is perhaps a little frustrating how little it seems to critically analysis the issues behind war and politics and instead just plays it as a straight thriller with the Gulf only serving as a background and not as subtext. With this aspect put to one side the film just about manages to work as a thriller but not a particularly good one. The plot is very much 'he said, she said' stuff and it is not as dramatic as it would like to think it is. The film tries to inject pace into it with a series of extreme actions by the characters and the excitement of the battle sequences but really it doesn't amount to a terrible lot. The subplot over Serling's incident never really feels relevant and was either tacked on or badly handled to the point that it seemed tacked on. Either way the plot is not as involving as it really should have been it does OK enough to make it worth watching once but it's no great shakes. The cast is impressive though and contains many stars as well as faces that have become a lot more famous since this. Washington is troubled and interesting, even if he has to occasionally switch on the worry on request. He is a good leading man and has good presence; his delivery goes part of the way to helping inject a bit of urgency into some of the scenes in this rather talky film. Ryan was a strange choice but I suppose she was desperate to have something to show her range. While it is easy to dismiss her performance, she is OK but it would have been a lot better if her performance had changed more that it did between the few accounts but I guess her range is not as wide as she would like to think it is. Outside of these two the main players are those in Walden's crew; Damon looks very young and does OK, Phillips is physically impressive but his character is difficult to totally swallow and Gilliam is a lot more understated than he was in Oz. The rest of the cast is populated by a large number of well-known faces including Taylor, Ivanek, Pinchot, Astin, Glenn, Thomas, McGill, Hall and Jenkins. Few of them have anything to do but their presence was rarely a distraction to me although I can imagine some viewers might be put off by the 'where do I know him from' factor. Overall this is an average drama that is talky and relies on the actors to try and inject into a plot that is really just about the different characters trying to cover their own backs. The cast are mostly good but Ryan's reach exceeds her grasp and they are mostly let down by average material. Worth a watch once for what it is but I can't imagine too many viewers will be returning for a second look.
Edward Zwick has had a hand in two TV series that I liked(MY SO-CALLED LIFE and RELATIVITY), and handled issues in a complex way whenever those shows addressed them. But like so many TV-directors who jump to movies, his movies have often taken simplistic approaches to complex stories. Admittedly, he has a fine visual eye, and his battle scenes are quite good. The opening scene in this movie is a perfect example, capturing the confusion and horror of battle, making it believable that Nat Serling(Denzel Washington) would accidently fire on his own troops. But then it turns disappointing. Part of the problem is I read a novel version which the screenwriter wrote before the movie came out, and two of the characters(the one Seth Gilliam plays, and the one Lou Diamond Phillips plays) are combined, so the so-called RASHOMON-type view is blunted, because we only get two points of view, instead of three. It also becomes too schematic and melodramatic, especially with the subplot about the reporter, which is unconvincing. It's a shame, because Washington is good in his portrait of a man who falls to the bottom and has to crawl his way back, and Meg Ryan is good as the late Karen Walden. Lou Diamond Phillips, however, gives the best performance. I just wish it had been in service of a better film.
The end of the film understandably lays on the emotion a little heavily, but until then Courage Under Fire has been a fascinating emotional and logistical puzzle--almost a courtroom movie, with the desert as the courtroom.
The image used in this article is the DVD cover from the UK release (which is also indicated by the "15" in the lower right corner). This is not a deliberate misspelling or disrespect toward American military by the movie studio, but a special design meant for the UK market. a5c7b9f00b

Courage Under Fire Download Movie Free

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