THE GREEN BERETS

By: Jamie Shuhyta, 1.25.2010

The Movie Itself:
John Wayne, the man who made the cowboy cool, steps out of his traditional gun slinger role to take on Hollywood’s first film attempt at portraying the Vietnam War. Often seen as a war with no purpose and more so one that had no concern for US involvement, The Green Berets tries to convey the anti-communist and pro-Saigon attitude. The Green Berets was a film John Wayne wanted to see made, as he felt it would help to ‘involve’ and ‘inform’ the America society via film media. The movie was produced in 1968, which is the period of heightened American involvement in Vietnam; this is also the same year as the Tet offensive against the largest cities in southern Vietnam was occurring. I’m sure you can then see the Political backing that influenced the making of this movie and in fact the entire project was given the blessing of President Johnson. Wayne also saw the project as a tribute to the soldiers in Vietnam and was often present to entertain them firsthand.

The plot of The Green Berets is the pretty typical ‘good guy, bad guy’ kind of stuff. Obviously the Americans are seen as the good and riotous soldiers fighting against the evil communist empire, typical Hollywood war epic stuff. None the less it is still quite enjoyable.

The story begins at Fort Bragg where a newspaper reporter named George Beckworth (Davis Janssen) is attending a military briefing on the Special Forces involvement overseas in Vietnam. The briefing basically sums up what is going on in the war and specifically the location of where US troops need/should be. As the briefing continues it becomes evident that many of the civilians and journalists are skeptics as to why the US military is involved in this fight. Top military leads simply say it’s a fight against the Communist nations of the world, and therefore the US must participate. They also provide evidence that captured North Vietnamese soldiers are utilizing weapons and equipment originating from Communist Russia and China. Becksworth though is still not 100% convinced that the US should be there. Green Beret Col. Mike Kirby (John Wayne) enters the scene and confronts Beckworth by simply asking him if he had ever been to Vietnam. Beckworth having not decides to go first hand to witness the war.

The movie then cuts to South Vietnam, particularly to an American Army camp where the US is conducting humanitarian missions to boost the moral. Beckworth witnesses these activities as he tours the camp. Although he sees the ‘good’ the US soldiers are doing he still feels skeptical about the whole thing. Soon after there is an attack on the camp by the North Vietnamese and Beckworth is stuck in the middle. Witnessing the horror and straight-out onslaught of the war he soon begins to feel different about the whole involvement. He admits though that it will be very difficult to write any type of story promoting the war though.

The plot then shifts to focus more on the Special Forces and on their top secret mission that is unfolding. Col Mike Kirby is putting together a team that he will lead to try to capture a high ranking NVA commander. This commander is notorious for his cruel and punishing ways. He lives in a huge guarded base, where he lives a lavish life of luxury. The common people are treated as slaves though, often starving, cold and unclothed. Col Kirby and his men plan to end his evil reign. Some great battle scenes then unfold.

As the movie comes to a close we again see Beckworth. He is still following a platoon of troops this time heading to the front line. We also see that he is carrying his portable typewriter so we can assume he is still out there to cover the truth as he witnesses it.

Being a fan of war movies I will admit Green Berets fits nicely to my tastes. It’s your classic Hollywood war movie so you know exactly what you will be getting. The plot itself doesn’t try to make you think or even feel moved as you watch. Its def not on the same caliber of say Platoon, which is more of a ‘thinking man’s’ Vietnam movie. The cast is quite good, Wayne is as you would expect, being over the top in his manner and language. The ‘Duke’ as always tries to define the masculinity of male heroes. The rest of the cast of Davis Janssen, George Takei, Jim Hutton, and Aldo Ray also add decent performances to the flick. Some viewers may be turned off though by the over emphasis on how ‘evil’ the portrayals of the Vietcong and North Vietnamese Army were. They are shown to be very sadistic and often as ruthless tyrants in combat. There is also the issue of over pushing the American War Machine as it fist pumps its way over the enemies. Basically there is an over exaggeration of the terms ‘good’ and ‘evil’ when it comes to the combatants. The film is also quite long at 141 minutes, so some might have issue sitting that long. Overall I would say it is what it is, a classic old time war flick, so one shouldn’t expect anything different from the genre norm.
Rating: 7/10

The Presentation:
The Green Berets hits Blu-ray in a 1080p/VC-1 transfer, aspect ratio of 2.40:1 and for the most part it’s fairly decent considering the age of the film. The transfer is clean of major defects which is nice because a lot of these older movies tend to show their age via black marks and blemishes. The Green Berets shows almost none of this. Colors are also fairly good; they are not as vibrant as a new release of course but still quite strong. Some scenes do suffer from color washout, especially the dark/night scenes. I assume this is a fault of the age of the film and perhaps even due to the film technology of the day. The transfer also has some weakness in the details both in the fore and background. The sharpness of edges is not there as most scenes seem to have more of a softness to them. Again I not sure if this is due to the encode or just a product of aging masters. Overall though I think it’s fair to state that the transfer is the best the film has seen to date, and probably better than the DVD. Overall video gets 6/10.

Audio on The Green Berets in an odd one to say the least as it’s a 1.0 audio track! No that’s not a typo it literally is only a single channel experience. The audio you get is as follows: English: Dolby TrueHD 1.0 or Dolby Digital 1.0, French: Dolby Digital 1.0, Spanish: Dolby Digital 1.0 or Dolby Digital 1.0 (Spain). The subtitle is list is amazing, and to date I don’t believe I’ve seen Blu with more choice: English, French, Spanish, Danish, Finnish, German SDH, Greek, Norwegian, Portuguese, and Swedish. I find it really really hard to rate the audio because it is so different than what I’m used too. The fact its 1.0 is depressing, but overall it is a good 1.0 experience. The 1.0 adds a level of ‘originality’ to the movie, basically it sounds exactly like it would have when originally released. Without any sub support you should expect a fairly high treble level so don’t look for any real depth on explosions, gun fire, etc. Dialog is very clear and clean; again because we are in the 1.0 sound mixes so all highs come out very high. I’m a big fan of surround sound immersion, but because of the lack of 5.1. or higher there really isn’t that ‘put in the center’ action most Blu’s provide. Given the age of the material I will be somewhat easier on the 1.0 track and give the audio 4/10.
Rating: 5/10 (video 6/10, audio 4/10)

The Extras:
There are really no special features on the Blu expect for 1 short vintage behind the scenes and the film’s theatrical trailer. It’s really hard to rate specials on old catalogs releases simply because there was no demand for extras in the day that a lot of these films were made. That being said this is a Blu-ray and we should expect some level of ‘extras,’ and for that reason I can’t justify more than 1 out of 10 in this department.

- The Moviemakers (Shot in SD, 7 mins)
- Theatrical Trailer (Shot in SD, 3 mins)
Rating: 1/10

Overall:
The Green Berets is an interesting flick to say the least. It is probably the only Vietnam movie with such a light attitude about it. Other Nam movies like Platoon and Apocalypse Now have clearly stood the test of time and show the darkness and horrors of the war. The Green Berets on the other hand shows a much lighter happier vision. After watching the movie its clear the political influences were in mind at the time of production, there is no doubt they wanted to promote the war rather than stop it. Overall though it is a decent movie and should hold your attention through 2 and a half hours. The presentation on Blu is just so-so, the video is ok but not great, and the audio is kinda scary as it only puts out 1 channel of audio goodness. Another negative is also the lack of special features, because to be honest there is almost nothing to be found. I would say for fans of the genre that it’s probably a buy, for everyone else give it a rent or just skip it all together.
Rating: 4/10