Boobirt Stylish but barely mediocre overall

NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

Salubfoto It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Yash Wade Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

dworldeater Let me start off by saying that I was 1 year old when we pulled out American troops from Vietnam, but if I was an adult or teenager around that time I would have opposed the war as well. This film in question, The Hanoi Hilton is based on the experiences of American POW's and their experiences in captivity during the war. The film does have a right wing tone that is in favor of the United States involvement in the conflict, but mostly is about the perseverance, solidarity and strength that these men had to endure while in captivity. The Hanoi Hilton was made by Cannon films, a company best known for action films like the Missing In Action series and Chuck Norris dose not show up to save the day in this one. This project, while not an action vehicle is another low budget film from Cannon. However, this is a pretty solid dramatic film with good performances from its ensemble cast. While hardly Oscar worthy, the movie gets across what it needs to by showing the horrific conditions, torture and squalor that American soldiers in captivity by the enemy had to endure and the efforts by their captors to break these men. The reality of the situation was, I am sure much worst then portrayed on celluloid. But, this gives the audience a good idea of what it may have been like for these men. Michael Moriarity is the leading man in this film and is told through his perspective and he delivers a solid performance. I remember this playing all the time on cable and it is a good film and holds up fairly well.

Wizard-8 First of all, I feel I should say that I am not against the idea of a movie praising U.S. soldiers who were imprisoned by the North Vietnamese during the Vietnam War. These soldiers suffered greatly, and their stories are stories that need to be told. "The Hanoi Hilton" was obviously an attempt to tell these soldiers' stories, but it is greatly uneven. One big problem is that the movie has a number of heavy-handed touches, namely with certain characters. It's not just with some of the communists (the prison warden, a visiting Cuban military officer), but also with liberal western characters (a visiting journalist, a Jane Fonda clone). The movie also takes way too long to get to the 1970s, and then it starts moving so quickly that the viewer barely gets a chance to absorb the now quickly unfolding scenes. And Michael Moriarty, while giving good performances in other works, is really miscast here. He seems too wimpish and meek to be a military person of high rank.On the other hand, every so often there is a really good touch in the movie. The period detail is pretty good for the most part; real P.O.W.s praised the look of the movie. Some of the acting by the mostly no-name cast is pretty convincing, and there are a few scenes (a torture sequence with the audio cut out, the P.O.W.s having a Christmas dinner) that are really well done and have genuine power. So the movie is far from terrible, but it also isn't exceptional. You may learn some things from this movie, but I have a feeling that if you want to learn what it was really like for these unfortunate men, you might find a book on the subject matter more informative.

Erich8192 This movie is about as entertaining as watching my grandmother (rip) prepare a plate of cheese and low sodium crackers. Frankly I feel cheated. I bought this FULL PRICE brand new 2008 Warner Bros DVD from Amazon for a ridiculous $17.99 + shipping (I could have bought 3 early 1990's Wesley Snipes features for that price dammit). A Cannon Pictures film from 1987 Reagan-Land I was expecting a Chuck Norris/Michael Dudikoff style R rated action extravaganza with 'Nam soldiers shooting auto mag retribution at their sadistic communist captors...instead I was graced with an agonizing 125 minutes of grown men weeping and middle aged POW's bitching about 'the Longhairs back home'. Despite what I thought, this is a DRAMATIC film, NOT an action film. The body count is a realistic and pathetic 2 or 3, and other than a couple brief electro torture scenes and a few naughty words, this film is pretty uptight and proper viewing. The ENTIRE film, save for the first 4 minutes, takes place inside the famed Hanoi Hilton prisoner camp (North Vietnam circa. late 1960's). Granted this story may 'have heart' and 'show it like it really was for those brave boys', but I don't usually watch B-grade bare-bones scripted movies for their emotional depth. There is no real 1980s style 'star' here, but rather a throwback to the WWII films of the early 1960's where a large and all male cast share equal billing. I didn't recognize any actor save for two; a redheaded Jeffrey Jones from Ferris Bueller's Day Off as a heart-of-gold POW, and General Quoc himself Aki Aleong about to reprise his role for Braddock: Missing in Action III as head of the prison. Like a proper and authorized story, the movie ends when the US government negotiates the release of all the POW's in East Asia, and they all weep for joy at their newfound freedom, cue credits. You can tell that the director was aiming this film at an older audience, likely for men who were POW's in the 1960's because these types of ultra-orthodox narratives would bore anyone from the MTV generation. Also the hyper-simplistic My-Government-Right-Or- Wrong mentality is really out of date by even this post-Iran Contra time in the late 1980's. But I do give this film credit for depicting the North Vietnamese officials as sadistic as they did, especially this one greasy haired Cuban bastard. All in all, this is a boring and at times uncomfortable (read: homo-erotic) film to watch, and it's over-simplistic patriotism and storyline is a big turn off.

dtucker86 The Hanoi Hilton is an excellent film, that sadly never found an audience due to the fact it was an independant film with a cast of relative unknowns (except for Michael Moriarity and David Soul). This is a shame because it spotlights the men of the Vietnam war who were the true heroes. The prisoners of war who went though hell for our country. We are spared no details of that hell they went through in this film. It is a terrible story, but one that needs to be told and one we must never forget. One thing I wanted to add, its a mistake that few have corrected. Many people believe that the longest held prisoner of war in Vietnam was Navy Commander Everett Alvarez. He was shot down in August of 1964 and held until February 1973. This is not true, the longest held POW of the Vietnam War (indeed the longest held prisoner of war in American history) is Army officer Floyd James Thompson. I read a book about him called Glory Denied by Tom Philpott that told his heartbreaking story and I want to tell it as well. Jim Thompson was born in New Jersey in 1933. He started out life working in a grocery store and married his sweetheart Alyce in 1953. In 1956, he was drafted into the Army. He grew to love the Army and planned to be a thirty year man. He went through Officer Candidate School, Airborne and Ranger training and became a Green Beret Special Forces Officer at Fort Bragg North Carolina. In December of 1963, Captain Thompson was sent to a then unknown country called Vietnam for a six month tour. In March of 1964 (I wish to point out this is almost six months before Alvarez's capture) Captain Thompson was on a small spy plane that was shot down. He was badly wounded and taken prisoner. Thompson spent nine years in hell. He was kept in mostly jungle camps that were even worse then the Hanoi Hilton. At one point, he had no contact with other human beings for five years. He underwent starvation and horrible torture before finally being realeased in March of 1973. However, Thompson's sad story was in many ways just beginning. He and his wife divorced and he was never able to really connect with his four children (his three daughters were only 6,4 and 2 when he was shot down and his son was born after he was taken prisoner). Although he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, he had lost the nine most important years of his career. He was a Lieutenant Colonel who didn't even have a Captain's experience. He married again but divorced shortly afterwards. Thompson began drinking heavily and even attempted suicide. Then in 1981, ironically after he finally conquered his alcoholism, Thompson suffered a massive heart attack and while hospitalized also suffered a massive stroke that left him permanently disabled. In 1990, he had to go thru the agony of seeing his son imprisoned for murder. Last year, Colonel Floyd James Thompson, a true American hero, died at the age of 69. This was one of the saddest stories that I have ever heard in my life a man and his family destroyed by war. I hope many people read the words that I am writing now because we need to remember the sacrifice of Colonel Thompson and the many like him who were POWs. The Hanoi Hilton helps us do just that.