"Vietnam -- Long Time Coming" is filmically a documentary a long time rambling.
Centering on a bicycle race through Vietnam sponsored by a sports management company, the film follows the 16-day course of competition between two former enemies: U.S. veterans and North Vietnamese ex-soldiers.
You'd have to go to a locker-room postgame interview with a winning professional football coach to hear more platitudes per minute.
With not much more than a travelogue grip on the narrative handles, the film's three co-directors, including the two who made the stunning "Hoop Dreams", have charted a meandering course so diffuse that it's often not much more than a cheerleading exercise for the virtues of athletic competition.
The notion that sports can bring people together, even former enemies, is the pinion of this potential think-piece. Undeniably, the more cynical viewer may regard with a tad of skepticism such an enterprise, where former U.S. grunts and North Vietnamese snipers are seen burying the hatchet to partake in an imaginary photo op sponsored by sports organizations with their own PR agenda. Is this "Saturday Night Live?"
No, it's serious and, beyond the surface blather of the unifying powers of sports, it's often gripping and heartbreaking.
The interviews and recollections are both sobering and heartbreaking. An amputee recalls, for instance, that day when in one split second, his teenage life was blown apart by a land mine.
One segment, in which some of the U.S. veterans refuse to partake in a ceremonial induction of a hospital for North Vietnamese war victims, is particularly illuminating. The men have astutely realized that they are being used as pawns in a propaganda game.
Unfortunately, the filmmakers do not have as astute a grasp on the propagandistic nature of their own enterprise.
Under its directorial triumvirate, "Vietnam" is competently executed as a racing film or a travelogue but scores less well as an evocative think piece.
VIETNAM -- LONG TIME COMING
Seventh Art
World T.E.A.M. Sports & Sports Illustrated, Kartemquin Films & Longshot Films present
a film by Jerry Blumenthal,
Peter Gilbert, Gordon Quinn
Producers: Jerry Blumenthal, Peter Gilbert, Gordon Quinn
Directors: Jerry Blumenthal, Peter Gilbert, Gordon Quinn
Director of photography: Peter Gilbert, Gordon Quinn, Tran Le Tien
Music: Ben Sidran
Editors: David Simpson, Jan Sutcliff, Sharon Karp, Bob Schneiger
Co-producer: Adam Singe
Narrator: Joe Mantegna
Color/stereo
U.S. veteran participants: George Brummel, Bob Connors, Heidi Baruch, Diane Carlson Evans, Artie Guerrero, Dan Jensen, Francis Love, Bob Maras, Jose G. Ramos, Wayne Smith, Jerry Stadtmiller
Running time -- 115 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Centering on a bicycle race through Vietnam sponsored by a sports management company, the film follows the 16-day course of competition between two former enemies: U.S. veterans and North Vietnamese ex-soldiers.
You'd have to go to a locker-room postgame interview with a winning professional football coach to hear more platitudes per minute.
With not much more than a travelogue grip on the narrative handles, the film's three co-directors, including the two who made the stunning "Hoop Dreams", have charted a meandering course so diffuse that it's often not much more than a cheerleading exercise for the virtues of athletic competition.
The notion that sports can bring people together, even former enemies, is the pinion of this potential think-piece. Undeniably, the more cynical viewer may regard with a tad of skepticism such an enterprise, where former U.S. grunts and North Vietnamese snipers are seen burying the hatchet to partake in an imaginary photo op sponsored by sports organizations with their own PR agenda. Is this "Saturday Night Live?"
No, it's serious and, beyond the surface blather of the unifying powers of sports, it's often gripping and heartbreaking.
The interviews and recollections are both sobering and heartbreaking. An amputee recalls, for instance, that day when in one split second, his teenage life was blown apart by a land mine.
One segment, in which some of the U.S. veterans refuse to partake in a ceremonial induction of a hospital for North Vietnamese war victims, is particularly illuminating. The men have astutely realized that they are being used as pawns in a propaganda game.
Unfortunately, the filmmakers do not have as astute a grasp on the propagandistic nature of their own enterprise.
Under its directorial triumvirate, "Vietnam" is competently executed as a racing film or a travelogue but scores less well as an evocative think piece.
VIETNAM -- LONG TIME COMING
Seventh Art
World T.E.A.M. Sports & Sports Illustrated, Kartemquin Films & Longshot Films present
a film by Jerry Blumenthal,
Peter Gilbert, Gordon Quinn
Producers: Jerry Blumenthal, Peter Gilbert, Gordon Quinn
Directors: Jerry Blumenthal, Peter Gilbert, Gordon Quinn
Director of photography: Peter Gilbert, Gordon Quinn, Tran Le Tien
Music: Ben Sidran
Editors: David Simpson, Jan Sutcliff, Sharon Karp, Bob Schneiger
Co-producer: Adam Singe
Narrator: Joe Mantegna
Color/stereo
U.S. veteran participants: George Brummel, Bob Connors, Heidi Baruch, Diane Carlson Evans, Artie Guerrero, Dan Jensen, Francis Love, Bob Maras, Jose G. Ramos, Wayne Smith, Jerry Stadtmiller
Running time -- 115 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 10/28/1998
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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