We Were Soldiers (Blu-ray Review)

June 22nd, 2008 Blu-ray-au Posted in Blu-ray Movie Reviews | Comments Off

We Were Soldiers (Blu-ray Review)

An unforgiving look at the first major engagement of the Vietnam conflict is now a Blu-ray disc
worth owning.

This story is a testament to the young Americans who died in the Valley of Death and a
tribute to the young men of the People’s Army of Vietnam, who died by our hand in that
place.

2002′s We Were Soldiers, I hoped, would rekindle Hollywood’s interest in churning out
high-quality Vietnam War movies, a genre that seemed to dominate the decade of the 1980s.
With films such as 1986′s Best Picture winner Platoon, the critically acclaimed href="http://www.…

Video

We Were Soldiers returns to the front lines of Blu-ray in a 1080p high definition, 2.35:1
framed transfer. This is a transfer sure to be as divisive amongst Blu-ray fans as the movie itself.
We Were Soldiers sports an intentionally rough look to it that lends a gritty, almost
documentary-like feel to the movie. Heavy grain permeates many frames which adds
a raw feel to the movie that befits the unforgiving war films of recent vintage. Much of the
movie is just the sli…

Audio

Unfortunately, Paramount has left We Were Soldiers behind in the audio department,
providing listeners with no lossless audio option, easily the biggest fault to be found on the disc,
but rest assured that both the DTS 6.1 track as well as the Dolby Digital 5.1 EX track are
excellent lossy mixes. For the purpose of this review, I watched the film in its entirety with the
DTS soundtrack. Explosions, of which there are many, rattle and reverberate with a might that
truly places …

Supplements

We Were Soldiers fights its way onto Blu-ray with a decent offering of supplemental
material. A feature-length commentary track with director and writer Randall Wallace starts
things
off. All things considered, this is a standard-fare track. Wallace proves engaging and offers some
fine information and anecdotes, much like one he tells early on about placing his son in the film
and
seeing him brutally killed on-screen so as to relate better to the horror and loss of war. Wa…

Final Words

We Were Soldiers, like any War movie worth its salt (and your time), may leave the
viewer
emotionally drained by film’s conclusion, the experience of witnessing the brutality and horrors of
combat on-screen is almost as frightening as experiencing it first-hand, or half a world away, as
we see depicted through the wives who play an integral role in telling this story. We Were
Soldiers
may not be
the finest war movie, or the most brutal, or the most intense, but it ma……

Read full review: Blu-ray.com