84C MoPic
84C MoPic
R | 22 March 1989 (USA)
84C MoPic Trailers

An Army cameraman is embedded with a reconnaissance patrol and charts their mission across territory controlled by the North Vietnamese.

Reviews
Perry Kate Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!
Bea Swanson This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.
Kirandeep Yoder The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.
Delight Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.
Arlis Fuson Watched this blindly knowing nothing about it and it wasn't too bad.Shot as a documentary, but it's not a documentary. All the story is completely made up and its about a camera man and a Lt. following soldiers out into the field on a mission. These soldiers are a tight knit group of green berets who do the dirty work most are scared to, but as you see as the film goes on these guys are as scared as anyone else is and they suffer and deal with the worst things the war has to offer. From casualties to killing men they have never seen, to surviving through the night this movie tells their tale.Writer/director Patrick Sheane Duncan did an extraordinary job here in my opinion. In his career he has touched on war before as well as music. His writing credits include Mr. Hollands Opus, Elvis the miniseries as well as A Home of our own. His direction here is meant to be that of a shaky nervous cameraman and one would expect to see a film like Cloverfield or Blair Witch BUT far from it, this movie does a perfect job of feeling like a documentary and feeling like a real motion picture at the same time. Not once was the camera shaky or hard on the eyes, it was very steady.The production here was well for a Vietnam movie, it was made two decades after the war but captured the essence well. The actors weren't familiar faces which helped with the documentary feel. All these men portraying soldiers did and a great job in my opinion.I liked a lot of things about the movie too, like how they showed the fear these men had, they didn't make them out to be arrogant heroes, they made them out to be honest and brave yet scared. Another good thing was race. In the field there is no black or white you are all brothers and this film touched on that nicely. I always find flaws in these movies and there were many little ones but it's to be expected. things like how well groomed these guys stayed and how clean their clothes were day after day, stuff like that does honestly makes me mad.The movie was good for a first watch, if you like dramas you will like it and if you like war movies it'll be a good one to check out. To me it did get extremely slow after the first ten minutes and didn't get laced with action until the last 30, which were great... 3 out of 10 stars.
bfishbine When I first watched this film I was in the 82nd at the time. It looked like an Army uncut documentary. My friends and I watched it several times looking for errors. The only error we could find (and it was a stretch) was the helicopter in the final scene had modified landing skids that were not developed till later. That helo also had a red checklist that probably would not have been used.The boots were tied right and worn-out in the right places. The rucks were heavy and carried like people who did that a lot. They wore their equipment right and each had the fitness level of an infantryman. The short-timer caught the spirit of what it meant to be short. Our short timers said the same stupid comments. "I'm so short I could halo off a dime" is funny the first time you hear it, not the 50th.Every squad seems to have the same people in it. This movie captured that to a "T." They talked way to much for a LRRP unit but it makes sense if you put grunts in front of a camera.Hands down one of the most realistic war movies ever made. In subtle ways this captures what it is like to be a grunt.
LtCol_Kilgore This is a unique film. It not only is filmed from a first person POV, but it didn't glamourize war as even humanist films do. There is not too much action yet the film is still fascinating. Instead, the film features what soldiers do in between all the glamourized gunfights. The soldiers camp out, quietly hike, interact and create tension amongst each other and also grow closer, scout out Vietcong positions, and talk about home. This is the most realistic depiction of Vietnam missions in film. The action is mostly incoherent, making it more realistic. There isn't any plagarized, motivating score (Pearl Harbor) set to dozens of soldiers running in slow motion. There are a few gunshots out of the jungle and a man goes down. THe film is emotional and powerful, a great war film. 8/10 or ***1/2 stars out of ****
oldskibum2 Much of the credit for the genuine feel of this film should go to two former Marines who had "been there, done that": Russ Thurman and Dale Dye. Dye's method of running the actors through a mini-boot camp helps raise this film to the level of "Platoon" and "Saving Private Ryan", his more widely-known achievements. Seen largely through the eyes (or lens) of the handheld camera of the mostly-unseen "Mopic", it gives viewers a different perspective on bonding that happens when men put their lives into each other's hands almost daily. Its ring of truth comes from endless tiny details that only former grunts would ever notice. When someone asks this former Marine which are the best Viet Nam films, "84 Charlie MoPic" and "The Odd Angry Shot" are at the top of a very short list.