[.ca] Hanoi Hilton

The Hanoi Hilton:
I was in the Air Force during the war and have over 100 combat missions. This is the most accurate presentation of the war that is available. It is a story that needed telling and still needs to be told. It describes the situation of the American prisoners in Vietnam in an accurate and truthfull manner. Everyone should see it.

Bad Telling of Good Story:
The Hanoi Hilton, Lionel Chetwynd's well-intentioned effort to tell the story of the American POWs, may be one of the best examples of what can happen when good directorial intentions go bad. The true story is a riveting and inspirational one, but Chetwynd's stiff editorial decisions and inane dialogue results in a movie that will make anyone who knows the POW story cringe. He researched the subject thoroughly and consulted with ex-POWs to ensure accuracy in the details (such as the layout of the prison and the garb), but the script falls so short it is embarrassing. Too bad this 1987 feature film used up the name "the Hanoi Hilton," because the best work on the infamous POW camp of North Vietnam is actually told in a 1998 documentary Return With Honor (produced by Academy Award winners Sanders and Mock for the American Film Foundation. Tom Hanks has put his name behind it.). The documentary weaves extraordinary historical footage with the comments of the real POWs - and the men are infinitely more authentic and fascinating to listen to than the stereotypical portrayals in The Hanoi Hilton. Anyone interested in an intelligent and articulate presentation of this subject should avoid Chetwynd's movie and see Return With Honor instead.

A film where the silence speaks volumes:
The Hanoi Hilton is a chilling video that gives an inside look into what it was like to be a PoW. They didn't allow you to talk, the silence speaks of the many tortures they went through. The lack of dialogue makes you look between the lines and hear what isn't said. There are no right sides in war, the movie wasn't about how horrible the North Vietnamese were, it is about the conditions of war in general and that place in particular. In case no one noticed, the torture became worse after the Cubans became involved. War is ugly, and the people who end up running things do ugly things on both sides. This is a haunting film that tells us just one part of what the Vietnam War was like. If you think its an attack on anyone, or not enough dialogue, you are missing the point. The point was very well made in this film...try listening harder to the silence between the lines.

so many movies like this:
there are so many movies like this....movies which showed the american hardships during the war. every movie blames the vietnamese as being evil. particularly this one. in every war....there are people who suffer.....and people who do the suffering. vietnamese people suffered in the war too...even more so than the americans. every vietnamese was affected with the war. lets not forget the my lai massacre and countless other incidents. both sides were to blame...not just the vietnamese. and because of that i dont give this movie a high rating.

COMMUNISM WAS EVIL, EVIL, EVIL:
One lonely conservative voice has been trying to shout out from the "wilderness" for years. Lionel Chetwynd is a writer/producer who made "The Hanoi Hilton", which actually described the North Vietnamese as the evil torturers they were. The "Hilton" was the moniker given the infamous prison camp where American POW's were kept while Jane Fonda was flirting with our enemies. Liberal film reviewers criticized it. Do not believe them. It is good stuff. STEVEN TRAVERS AUTHOR OF "BARRY BONDS: BASEBALL'S SUPERMAN" STWRITES@AOL.COM