Ben says: Courage under fire is one of those movies that was just made for the gung-ho American public, featuring brave soldiers giving their all in heated battle and waiting for the "rag-heads" to ambush them at night. The story revolves around Denzel Washington, himself a tortured hero from the Gulf war conflict, looking into a young soldier killed in combat who is to receive a posthumous medal of honour. The soldier in question turns out to be Meg Ryan, looking very dashing in a flight suit and from that moment on, no matter what the evidence, you know that good ol' Meg will not turn out to be a coward, but a gung-ho hero just like the American public need to take their minds of the enormous waste of the war.However, the special effects extravanganza that is the movie version of the battles doesn't detract from a thoughtful, if formulaic, movie which actually borders on pathos at the end when Washington has to confront the parents of the man he killed and apologise to them. Denzel Washington gives his standard soldier performance, but Meg Ryan, although not given very much dialogue, seems to relish the role given her in contrast to her usual saccharine.
Funny to note, Fox must be disowning this film since there isn't a site for it. The graphic at the top of the page comes from hollywood.com.
Ben gives it: 
Fiona says: I'm going to give this three stars. I did enjoy the film, but I did get a bit fed up with Denzel Washington's clichéd angst-ridden character. I think the scriptwriters spent too much time displaying his dismay over his actions during the Gulf war. Yes, it was a bit of a bummer that he blew up one of his own tanks, but why did he have to take to drink? Let's demand that scriptwriters are more inventive and find other crutches for our despondent heroes to use, for example:- the need to play hopscotch at half two in the morning, an insatiable desire for jelly beans or a compulsion to dance the Lambada with eighty year-old grannies. You see? All it needs is a little imagination.
Anyway, back to the plot. Young Denzel (actually not so young, but still gorgeous in uniform) explores the merits of bestowing a posthumous medal on our Meg. He questions her chopper crew about her conduct during the incident that caused her demise. What a motley bunch we have here. There's the medical orderly who's just a wee bit too twitchy - anything to do with access to paracetamol maybe? There's the black guy (who might as well have been wearing a "Star Trek" red shirt), there's the co-pilot who lives in the middle of nowhere in a wheelchair and keeps telling his wife to back off when he talks about "the incident". Finally, we have raving hard nutter Lou Diamond Phillips whose top lip is just too thin for my liking. He's mean and nasty and if you watch the film you'll find out why... If I had to choose one character from the film to be hung, drawn and quartered without the aid of a safety net, it would have to be him.
Leaping swiftly back to the plot again, all the loose ends are neatly tied as usual in the last ten minutes of the film. Denzel and wife have a big hug and he doesn't ignore the children, Denzel goes to see the parents of the man he killed (who just happened to be his best buddy) - and cries and finally Denzel goes to the cemetery. That's it. They could easily have dropped twenty minutes from the film which would have given it more of a bite.
Fiona gives it:
last updated: 12th October 1996
