Who'll Stop the Rain (1978)

The best and the brightest

This movie is, without a doubt, the best movie about Viet Nam ever made. Each character we meet has something to say about how we got there, how we avoided facing the truth, and how we denied, not only, responsibility for what we did, we very nearly denied it even happened.

This is worth seeing every few years -- there is always something new to see in it.

A Forgotten Masterpiece
This is one of the finest, most honest, and most courageous films to come out of the Vietnam Era. Based on Robert Stone's best-selling novel DOG SOLDIERS, it's a war story, a crime story, an action thriller, and a romance. Distinguished by superb cinematic storytelling and incisive vision, it features performances from Nick Nolte, Tuesday Weld, and Michael Moriarty that are among the best in each of their careers.

Warning Spoiler - READ ONLY at your discretion...
I don't know - do we need a spoiler warning for a film from the 70's at this point? Anyway, this film was a footnote caught somewhere between Apocalypse Now and Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, etc.. But I liked it in the same way as Billy Jack in that it was an unpretentious story driven off pure character and story. No wiz bang special effects (except maybe the finale) here just people caught up in circumstance. But the ending sticks with me to this day. Nolte double-times it off into the distance, at port arms, improbably singing a Jody call (a real old school non-PC one at that). You can't predict nor control and perhaps even understand what life and fate throws at you but to be true to your own nature in spite of it is about as best as anyone can expect.