Hamburger Hill

Most of the power of this scrupulously honest memorial isn't in the talk; it's in the terror and the foreignness - the far-from-home-ness - of the imagery. Directed by John Irvin, the film has great decency; it joins together terror and thoughtfulness.

Seeing Hamburger Hill is like watching the 6 o'clock news almost two decades ago. Part of this reality is due to the special effects, which were coordinated by Joe Lombardi. The napalm sears the screen; the tracers rip right through it. [14 Oct 1987]

Between its dreamy Philip Glass score, vivid location shooting, and strong early performances by future stars Dylan McDermott, Courtney Vance, Steven Weber, and Don Cheadle, Hamburger Hill stands out from the pack as one of the best of the Vietnam movies. Read full review

As a direct tribute to the dignity of the solider facing attacks on both their bodies and their souls it puts things in a salutary context. Read full review

Had the filmmakers resisted the temptation to politicize their material they might have made a great war movie. They might also have thought to give us some indication of the strategic significance of the hill. As it is, they've managed to create a deeply affecting, highly accomplished film. Read full review

Well-produced and directdd with an eye to documentary-like realism and authenticity, pic centers upon a military undertaking of familiar futility during the Vietnam War. Read full review

Time will eventually reveal that HAMBURGER HILL is one of the best and most realistic films made about the Vietnam War. Read full review

With its modest, no-nonsense approach, Hamburger Hill seems, curiously, more like the first film in a cycle than a late entry. After the baroque extravagance of the Vietnam films that have come before it, the movie runs a good chance of being overlooked. But it's an intelligent, craftsmanlike job, with a power of its own; it merits recognition. [28 Aug 1987, p.AC]

Two actors who do have good material, and make the most of it, are Courtney Vance, as the platoon's snappish, highly articulate medic, and Dylan McDermott, as the platoon's exhausted sergeant. Mr. Vance is particularly fine. The narrative picks up weight and momentum every time he comes on the screen. Also good is Tegan West, who plays yet another young, raw lieutenant who must depend on the patience of his men. Read full review

There are a couple of rocky moments, but the large cast of unknowns go through hell convincingly, and illustrate the randomness of mortality. Read full review

Hamburger Hill pays heartfelt, richly deserved tribute to the young American soldiers who fought so valiantly there. If only director John Irvin, who was in Vietnam in 1969 making a BBC documentary, and writer Jim Carabatsos, a Vietnam veteran, had been content to honor these men who were prepared to risk their lives in what had become a singularly unpopular war. But they don’t trust the soldiers’ brave actions to speak for themselves and instead give them a series of preachy, rabble-rousing speeches that add up to a diatribe against the anti-war movement at home rather than an attack on U.S. involvement in the war in the first place. Read full review

Less pretentious than Platoon and more attentive to the Vietnamese than The Deer Hunter, this picture proposes with a great deal of skill and sincerity that we honor and respect the men who suffered on our behalf without even beginning to consider why they did so, or to what effect. Read full review

Its battle scenes have a raw, gritty power that's closer to an actual documentary than any other Vietnam movie (the director, John Irvin, is an Englishman with an extensive background in documentaries, including ones about Vietnam). But its uncompromising indictment of the antiwar movement back home is much too simplistic and undercuts the film's tremendous momentum as a record of the combat soldiers' hellish ordeal. [14 Sept 1987, p.83]

Kudos to Vietnam vet Jim Carabatsos for writing Hamburger Hill, the only ’80s Nam film that truly showcases American heroism, but this dramatization of the charge up hellish Hill 937 lacks context and bitterly scapegoats peace activists and the media. Read full review

Though there's a scene of racial discomfort (nothing more serious) and a few rather flat-footed references to anti-war feelings back home in Hamburger Hill, the sense of time and place is missing altogether. Hamburger Hill is an all-purpose war movie with the requisite noble message -- war is hell, and futile, too -- but it could be set anywhere. In those parts of the world where local audiences will not accept an American adventure movie with the Vietnamese as vanquished foe (parts of Southeast Asia were shown Rambo with subtitles that portrayed it as a anti-Japanese commando raid from World War II), Hamburger Hill will play with few problems...Unhappily, neither screenwriter Jim Carabatsos (who did Heartbreak Ridge for Clint Eastwood) nor director John Irvin is able to provide the story any tighter focus, either. [28 Aug 1987, p.D1]

It waffles. In the end, it emerges a distinctly pro-soldier, possibly anti-war movie that supports America's overseas doctrine, whether it be right or wrong. One shudders to think what they might create if asked to portray the United States' current role in Central America. Their film certainly wouldn't dare make a statement, bother to educate or entertain. And most importantly, it wouldn't take sides. [29 Aug 1987, p.1D]

It don't mean nothin'. [28 Aug 1987]