Danger Close

ANDY’S RATING:

HOLLYWOOD began retreating from Vietnam in the late 1980s, but Australian filmmakers haven’t quite run out of war stories.

Here, director Kriv Stenders re-stages The Battle Of Long Tan, a 1966 firefight involving 108 Aussies and Kiwis and around 2,000 Viet Cong and North Vietnamese soldiers.

Unlike US classics Apocalypse Now, Born On The Fourth Of July and Full Metal Jacket, this one isn’t too interested in developing characters or examining politics.

Stenders instead finds his drama in military tactics and the mechanics of command.

If that sounds a little dry to you, then don’t sign up for this slick war flick.

But fans of the genre may be impressed with the way the film cuts through the fog of battle to reveal precisely how the fight played out. This tense but unfashionable drama jumps between locations, units and command stations as the fighting rages near a remote plantation.

Major Harry Smith (Vikings star Travis Fimmel) is trapped in the forest as commander of Delta Company. Most of his fighting force are young conscripts, outnumbered and outgunned by a never-ending horde of enemy soldiers. Brigadier Oliver Jackson (Richard Roxburgh) fears the enemy wants to lure more of his troops into the field so they can attack his base.

As a debate rages, we meet the crews of fighter jets, artillery units and armoured support vehicles, who are all forced into the same uncomfortable decision.

Do they defend their base or save their comrades?