Courage Under Fire
Many movies that have come out this summer use special effects galore with a routine plot to entertain us. But when a movie that uses hardly any special effects that still entertains, that's when you know you have a good film. Courage Under Fire is just one of those films. With a riveting plot and story with great actors, the movie unfolds the events of a certain act of courage that is being considered for the Medal of Honor. And for the first time in history, it is being considered for a woman.
The story opens with a small sequence in Desert Storm in 1991. Lt. Colonel Nat Serling (Denzel Washington) is in a battle in the Iraqi desert. When a tank separates to search for more "action," that's when the battle actually begins. However, this tank is mistaken for an enemy target and, when Serling gives the order to fire, he finds out that he has destroyed one of his own tanks. "Friendly fire," as it is called.
Soon after, he is given a desk job at the Pentagon to investigate the Medal of Honor for "courage under fire." However, the Army is pushing to give the Medal away because of the public relations value at stake. The reason is, is that she is a woman. Capt. Karen Walden (Meg Ryan) risked her life to save her crew. She was killed in the battle and therefore, she is deserving of the award. But Serling finds a couple of holes in the troups' stories and wants to find out if she really should get the award. (The flashback scenes show wonderful editing done by the filmmakers.)
Sterling is determined to find out what really happened on that mission. He talks to the crew individually. At first, things seem fine, but after he talks to one of Walden's crewmates (Lou Diamond Phillips), the stories begin to contradict each other. Phillips claims that Walden was a chicken. She panicked under the pressure and couldn't handle the stress. Some of the other crew members said she was never chicken. Sterling doesn't know who to believe, and neither does the audience. The acting has to count for some, if not most, of the believability of the characters.
Denzel Washington is wonderful in his protrayal of Col. Serling. He gives his character the subtlety that it required. We can tell that he is a complex man and not many other actors could have shown the subtlety in this way. The directors may have had something to do with it as well, but I think Washington contributed a lot to making the character work. Meg Ryan, in a smaller role than she normally has, is pretty good. She shows the different sides of the stories equally. If it was Phillips' story, she appeared afraid and unsure. Lou Diamond Phillips was my favorite character in the movie. The character was a flat, one-dimensional cliche, but Phillips adds a depth to it that it really needed. He turns it into a wonderful villain that you wouldn't expect to be a villain. The other supporting actors are also good, except for the overacted Michael Moriarty character.
Courage Under Fire is rated R. The violence is usually during the flashback scenes and they even get a little gory at times. The language is a little harsh, but not as bad as some R rated movies. Director Edward Zwick has provided a riveting protrayal of a ficticious story that almost could be a true one. He and writer Patrick Sheane Duncan add a complex story to the usual wartime story, but the way they handle it is an unusual turn which turns out to be a wonderfully compelling and even depressing motion picture.