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Overlooked & Underrated Docs & Features (click on broll or dschwartz for all his posts)

Bravo!: Common Men, Uncommon Valor
Ken and Betty Rodgers' riveting documentary, "Bravo!", begins with three lines of text: "This is not a pro-war film. This is not an anti-war film. This is a film about what happened." During the next two hours the viewer is propelled through a 77-day siege of 6,000 Marines by at least 20,000 North Vietnamese soldiers.

It is 1968. A leadership decision is made to entrap as large a number of North Vietnamese fighters as possible. The battleground: Khe Sanh combat base. The bait: 6,000 Marines, additional military units, an ammo dump, two HQ bases, and an airstrip. The North Vietnamese take the bait, the two fighting forces become mutually entrapped.

Through heart-breaking, jaw-dropping, tearful interviews with 15 survivors, through archival footage and stills, audio recordings made during and after the siege, and through accurately-created sounds of battle, we experience this eleven-week siege as lived by the men of Bravo Company, First Battalion, 26th Marines. These 120 Marines, in their late teens and early twenties, comprise the Company placed at the end of the airstrip, next to the ammo dump, between the First Battalion headquarters and the HQ of the 26th Marine Regiment—in the cradle of prime military targets.

The survivors describe the battles, the deaths and woundings, the fear, and the heroic actions. They speak of their time in the trenches under constant bombardment. The quiet on-camera presence of these men, their voices, their faces, their eyes, their tears, and their words—all scream as powerful a statement about the nature of war as any still photos or moving images of battle, as any of the finest or grittiest Hollywood war films. Approximately sixty Marines of Bravo Company are killed, many wounded, and all the survivors' minds are seared by this journey through Hell.

The film also presents images of the massive bombing of the North Vietnamese Army—the largest such campaign in history. When the Vietnamese withdraw, both sides define their part of the confrontation as successful.

"Bravo!" is an astounding motion picture, made more so by the fact that this is Ken and Betty Rodgers' first film—one that looks, feels, and sounds as if it were produced by seasoned filmmakers. An instant classic, "Bravo!" is a timeless portrayal of this ageless / undying / everlasting / perpetual human activity called war.

D. Schwartz October 4, 2011