Under Heavy Fire

Under Heavy Fire
by Sidney J. Furie

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DVD Reviews of Under Heavy Fire

DVD Review: Does "Under Heavy Fire" live to its name?
Summary: 1 Stars

This movie seems to be fairly offensive and distasteful because it used an male actor, Casper Van Dien in his 20s as a Vietnam veteran while the actress, Carre Otis, who looked like she was flirting, lusting, and taking pictures at this fairly egoistic whiner. Instead, it should use a real Vietnam veteran in his 50s as a leading role.

The battle actions seemed too scattered, too fixed-chaos, and too much past/present time hopping. Some scenes of jungle almost looked like they were not previously touched by some soldiers of past because they did not look dense enough. It caused me to suspect that some actors of present were more afraid to walk and crawl through some areas with high density of plants, insects, and animals than the old-time actors.

It painted Captain Ramsey as the king of the Vietnam tunnel battle which was very rare in Vietnam War. In reality, a lot of Americans were unable to go into some tunnels. It was one of most difficult and daunting tasks a U.S. soldier ever took. It took a very small soldier to enter a Viet-Cong tunnel successfully. He would be known as "Tunnel Rat".

According to the title's polite statement(on back of DVD/VHS package), it failed to mention that it would include short sexual scenes at "present" time which was fairly unusual for a Vietnam War-related film. Because of this, it made the movie seemed fraud.

Not just the statement, so does the title. The movie failed to match its title, "Under Heavy Fire". The title seems too exaggerating because of too few battle actions, poorly selected fields for a war film, and too much of bus-riding and unprofessional touring at the present time.

What in the world why did the film waste its time showing some so-called Vietnam veterans staring at dirty graffit written on the outside walls? This wasted minutes should be used for real fighting action to be according with the title.

The TV journalist, Kathleen Martin, treated Captain Ramsey as if he was a special person and acted like he should deserve some pleasure treatment from a good-looking woman like her.

Involving some story-telling Vietnamese at the present time in the movie actually saved it from becoming totally laughingstock. Actors and actresses seemed to do well but their reputations could be affected by the movie's script. Good and organized script is very critical key to make a movie to be successful.

I feel kind bad for an attractive actress/modeler like Carre Otis, to be included to Sidney J. Furie's war-related directing.
Casper Van Dien should not be used because of his age and he was not a real Vietnam veteran. He did not even wear facial make-up or mask to make him to look older. It is highly unusual for a man in his 50s to have a lot of hair and youthful skin. Dying hair white while leaving everything alone does not help at all.

Carre Otis is recommended and deserved to be in the movie, she should be used properly in script term. She could be either perform a lot of sex or do no sex at all.

To add sex scenes in "fictitious documentary" section many years after the war, is not best option. Otherwise, remove ficitious documentary and put in "non-documentary" fiction should sound better.

To improve the movie, some sex scenes should be deleted (not because of graphics -no problem with those, just not essential), more battle time at right places, and turning too long "fictious" documentary into a brief "real" documentary with real Vietnam veterans who would not screw up against each other. It should not offend some Americans and probably Vietnamese. ( I think that it insults some Vietnam veterans because of Casper Van Dien is being picked up to be a leading role.)