Casualties of War (1989) on Netflix
During the Vietnam War, Sergeant Tony Meserve's squad is denied leave, and he orders his men to kidnap a Vietnamese girl from a village. Private First Class Max Eriksson objects.
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Trailer
Plot summary
A platoon of American soldiers in Vietnam is ambushed by Viet Cong during a night patrol, and Private First Class Max Eriksson falls into a tunnel entrance; his squad leader, Sergeant Tony Meserve, pulls him out. A second ambush near a river village kills Meserve's friend Brown, and the platoon is ordered back to base. Denied leave, Meserve tells his men to kidnap a Vietnamese girl to bring on their next reconnaissance patrol. Eriksson objects and confides in his friend Rowan. After nightfall the squad, including Corporal Thomas E. Clark, Private First Class Herbert Hatcher and Private First Class Antonio Dìaz, enters a village and takes Tran Thi Oanh.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Casualties of War (1989)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
SPOILER
The film is based on a real 1966 Vietnam War incident on Hill 192, in which a Vietnamese woman named Pan Thi Mao was kidnapped from her village, raped and murdered by a squad of American soldiers; the film changed all the names and some details.- Stephen Baldwin was originally cast as Herbert Hatcher but was fired only a few days into filming, which he later attributed to clashing with director Brian De Palma after he questioned Sean Penn's use of a New York accent; he was replaced by John C. Reilly, who happened to already be on location working as an extra.
- In the 1980s, studio executive Dawn Steel tried to get the film made at Paramount, but studio head Ned Tanen was repulsed by the subject matter and shelved it in "turnaround"; Steel herself was fired from Paramount shortly afterward while she was in labor giving birth to her daughter.
SPOILER
Writer David Rabe and director Brian De Palma clashed over how to end the film: Rabe wanted the closing scene to simply show Eriksson helping a girl on a train carry her groceries, but De Palma insisted she instead tell Eriksson that his "bad dream" was over.- The first film made from the same true story, German director Michael Verhoeven's o.k. (1970), caused so much controversy among the judges when it was entered at the Berlin Film Festival that the festival was shut down for the year with no awards given.
- De Palma, writer David Rabe and producer Art Linson briefly planned a nightmare sequence showing Meserve taking revenge on Eriksson, but Rabe was relieved it was never filmed, having worried the film was already dark enough.
