Charlie Bravo (1980) User Reviews

lost French platoon in the Vietnamese jungle

[zablotf · 7/10 · 13 July 2006]

The story takes place in the last days of the French war in "Indochina" in 1954. A dozen of paratroopers land in the jungle for a rescue mission. The Vietminh will exterminate the soldiers as they are ready for ex-filtration, just at the time of the cease-fire between the French and the Vietminh. The scenario is similar to many war movies of better quality (from Aguirre by Herzog to "the 317th platoon" by Schoendorffer and "Southern Comfort" ) but "Charlie Bravo" (code name for the platoon) is not that bad... Some aspects of the scenario are not very realistic (the Army nurse they rescue looks so pretty after days in the jungle, lack of air support, suicide run on the beach ...).

An interesting exercise in morality

[ghoule-582-207091 · 5/10 · 16 August 2010]

Let's make it clear : Charlie Bravo is a second or third rate movie. Some characters are sketchy at best, if not bland and hard to distinguish. Photography feels dull, and art direction is bare-bones. If Indochina / Vietnam really looks like this - rainstorm, swamps, infinite jungles, boring inhabitants, empty villages -, there is no understandable reason France or USA ever invaded this country.

And this is clearly the point of the movie : France was wrong (as were/are Great Britain, Portugal, Spain, Germany, Holland, etc.), colonialism is barbarism and these poor people (the Viet) have the right to defend themselves and their land.

This is why I like this movie. Charlie Bravo shows that soldiers follow orders, and besides that care only about themselves. These infantrymen are out there to rescue some dumb white girl from the Viets, and they will not hesitate to kill both enemy soldiers and innocent villagers that cross their paths. Hell, they even shoot down a Red Cross helicopter refusing to pick one of their wounded, sending everyone on board to their deaths! Of course, these soldiers aren't very brilliant, and they get picked one by one through the jungle... just like Predator, with many Viet instead of an alien. Abandoned by their country, madness finishes the gang, they all go gun-blazing on the enemy, and they finally get what they deserve : death on the field of dishonour.

Even with all this, you still care for these poor bastards, and they get you to believe their murderous reasons... for a moment. If only they had steered clear from their treacherous government and stayed home. If only warmongering USA would finally understand that war on Asian ground is useless and get their boys and girls out of Afghanistan and Irak. These countries are best left alone.

One of the worst movies I've ever seen

[frankfob · 1/10 · 23 February 2009]

Terribly written, sloppily made, poorly acted dreck about a French "commando" unit sent behind the Viet Minh--the predecessors of the Viet Cong--lines in 1954 to rescue a captured nurse. This isn't just a "B" picture, it's a "Z" picture. For a "commando" unit, these guys make the kinds of mistakes that a recruit in his first week of basic training wouldn't make--when attacking a village they all crowd together and run screaming, hollering and firing wildly down the one dirt path that leads to the village instead of quietly approaching it and then attacking from all sides, they set up cooking fires at night and sit around drinking, arguing and laughing uproariously even though they're behind enemy lines and know that the Viet Minh are looking for them, just two examples of many. The "action" scenes are laughable, both the dubbing and sound effects are amateurish in the extreme, the story is convoluted and often makes no sense whatsoever, and the film overall is a jumbled, incoherent, overheated mess. Do yourself a favor and avoid it.

Darn good french war movie.

[searchanddestroy-1 · 18 October 2010]

Let's say first that the film maker Claude Bernard Aubert is a Indochina war vet, as was Pierre Schoendoerfer. But his films are a bit lower than the Dien Bien Phu's director. They are cheaper, for instance this one. It is not a masterpiece, as was the 317ème SECTION. Bernard Aubert directed some films about racism, such as LES TRIPES AU SOLEIL or LES LACHES VIVENT D'ESPOIR, some good crime movies (L'AFFAIRE DOMINICI - his most famous, most daring, most ambitious, starring Jean Gabin, and L'ARDOISE - from a Pierre Lesou's novel) and some "nudes" features in the 70's, probably to pay his electricity bills...

Back to CHARLIE BRAVO, this is a realistic, cruel, fierce war feature, with unforgettable sequences, such as the one with the dying soldier asking for a bl..job to his own commanding officer, just before his death!!!

It's a sort of LOST PATROL scheme.

No heroes in this tale, where "brave" french soldiers slaughter a whole village to erase their trace. A tragic story that leaves a ash taste in the mouth.

Shame on the "military advisor" for this flick!

[minnich · 4/10 · 13 April 2021]

Maybe halfway through, I stopped counting the idiotic, unrealistic mistakes this squad of French (Foreign :Legion, maybe?) paratroopers made as far as infantry tactics. Early in the flick, they magically have a flamethrower available (which never reappears thereafter)...yes, I believe paratroopers on a behind-the-lines special ops mission would ALWAYS carry something like that, right? Then there's the refusal to hit the ground, time after time, when engaging the Viet Minh (who are always in identical, neat black pajamas and red-starred "coolie hats"), many of the troops choosing to scream loudly and routinely fire full-auto (because you, of course, have LOADS of ammo with you on a multi-day mission like this...) during the engagements.

As they proceed through jungle and rice paddies, their bunched-up marching technique -- and no point man far out front -- was ludicrous.

At least the blonde playing the captured nurse they rescue was pretty, and had a couple topless scenes (she'd been in even more "exposed" scenes in other French T&A movies back in the 1970s/80s).

Interesting elements: there's a punji-stick impalement that was a nice touch and fairly realistic, and another "spiked weight on a rope" impalement that was harder to believe, but interesting. Likewise, they had a radio that required a hand-cranked generator to power, which you rarely see. However, the most mind-blowing event -- which I've NEVER seen in a war movie -- occurred towards the end, when one trooper is dying and asks a "special last favor" of the nurse...who refuses, but which the LIEUTENANT then provides (!). Incredible, but high points to the director for breaking new film-making boundaries, I guess!

Watch this one for laughs.