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This stirring adaptation of Neal Travis' award-winning book stars Bill Paxton as Lt. Col. John Paul Vann, a military advisor sent to Saigon in 1962 to help South Vietnam's battle against the Communist North. After revealing his critical findings to a reporter, Vann is dismissed from his job, but returns years later as a civilian advisor during the Johnson administration. With Vivian Wu, Donal Logue and Amy Madigan. 118 min. Standard; Soundtracks: English Dolby Digital Surround, Spanish Dolby Digital Surround; Subtitles: English, Spanish; biographies.
Based on Neil Sheehan's controversial book about the making of the Vietnam war, this HBO production is told from the perspective of Lt. Colonel John Paul Vann (Bill Paxton), one of the original military advisers sent in 1962 to prop up the fledgling South Vietnamese army against the Viet Cong. Battle-ready and enthusiastic upon his arrival, Vann quickly learns that political and social pressures are causing the South Vietnamese to doctor evidence of their victories and local military brass to take undeserved credit for overhyped battles. As the propaganda draws America ever deeper into a war most people clearly don't understand, Vann takes issue with the corruption and finds his career in tatters--only the beginning of a long journey that piles tragedies upon ironies. Written and directed by Terry George (Some Mother's Son), A Bright Shining Lie has a somewhat rushed and brittle quality to it, made all the more dry by passages from Sheehan's book read, documentary-style, by Donal Logue. But George also makes a case for Vann's more blatant personal contradictions--such as the casualness of his womanizing when he so clearly loves his wife (Amy Madigan)--that only grow as years pass and political myths supporting the war fold over onto themselves. (Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg, more or less played in this film by Eric Bogosian, has taken issue with this depiction of Vann's character.) Sustaining the whole project is Paxton's focused, thoughtful performance, and an enduring public hunger to know just what it was that happened in Vietnam. On both counts, the film is well worth seeing. The DVD includes cast bios, English and Spanish audio tracks, and English, Spanish, and French subtitles. --Tom Keogh
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