[7]

Michael J. Fox stars in this Vietnam War flick from Brian DePalma, but combat isn’t the focus here. Fox plays a soldier who puts his life on the line when he tries to free a young Vietnamese woman that his patrol has kidnapped and raped. Even after the woman’s suffering is over, Fox’s character still has to keep a watchful eye for ‘freak accidents’ as well as underhanded bullying from military superiors. Fox does an admirable job trying to break free of his Alex Keaton/Marty McFly mold, and Sean Penn is reliable as the platoon’s volatile instigator. But the best acting is from Thuy Thu Le as the tortured woman. This is her only film role to date, but it’s a haunting one. The film is boosted by beautiful location photography and a moving score by Ennio Morricone. With John Leguizamo, John C. Reilly, and Ving Rhames.