jussi-hakala A movie needs to entertain, teach something, or make us think. This movie does none of the three. Instead it presents the US Marines as preposterously stupid duds with no military skills, no discipline, and mostly being led by retards.The highlight of the film is when they call artillery, fighters and helicopters to destroy a non-existent NVA battalion on an empty hill so they could claim a 'body count'. Some highlight! (This was the only sign of cogent thought in the entire film) My advice: watch it if you want, but it is so lacking in entertainment and message that you won't watch it twice

sychonic Spoilers -- Among Other Things It Includes a Reference To The Scene Toward the End.Early Vietnam movie--flawed, but interesting time piece, 3 February 2002 (This comment was deleted by IMDb based on an abuse report filed by another user) Hollywood in the seventies avoided the Vietnam War, almost as if it didn't exist--until the last few years of the decade when out came a spate like Coming Home, Apocalypse Now, and The Deerhunter. Among the first was this one--which uses the tried and true method of following a number of soldiers through basic training and then into combat (used effectively in Sands of Iwo Jima). Here, there's a variety of archetypes, the jokemeister, the sixties hippie, a criminal from the streets, and the all-American boy. There are a variety of quality in the portrayals (the Drill Instructor is outstanding, putting in a precursor performance that he would reprise in Full Metal Jacket). Stan Shaw as the gangster from the inner city seeking a method of heroin importation puts in a pretty good performance, and handles the characters transformation well.There's actually not that much combat here, and it's hard to say how accurate it is with what it does portray without having that as a personal experience--those who went and fought in Vietnam would be the ones to make that assessment. The real problem with the movie is it's cynicism--its makers probably attempted to make and anti-war movie, where the personal relationships forged in war are its sole redeeming value. But it seems to fail to adequately explain even the basics of Vietnam--not that a movie can ever hope to explain the history, politics, or cultural reasons for Vietnam, but it could have helped to know something about the context these guys faced if we are to understand them as characters.The other serious flaw in the movie is that it can't resolve the situation--a lot of war movies culminate in a final shootout. Not here, in fact, the movie punts--it ends with, of all things, a soccer game. Reminiscent of the silly ending of MASH with its football game. What soccer has to do with Vietnam is mystifying.It may still be worthwhile to watch, mostly because of its status as one of the first efforts by the movie industry to deal with the Vietnam War--other than the "Green Berets", made ten years earlier, Hollywood made some halting steps (Apocalypse Now had very little to do with the day to day fighting , and Coming Home and the Deerhunter seemed more interested in the home front than the daily grind of fighting). Not until Full Metal Jacket (Hue) and Platoon (jungle fighting) did Hollywood seem to get itself together.In that light, this movie is interesting not because it's a great movie--it really isn't, but because of where it is in our cultural history.

LandSryanjr i want to say the movie boys of company c was great!! the movie showed what i believed to be what it was like in Vietnam. and showed the lives of the characters to be real. i also have seen full metal jacket, and that movie is also great, and is rank high on the list as boy of company c, great movies, can't wait for boys of company c to come out on DVD, i want to see the movie jar head and i hope it is as good. i like the war pictures, saving private Ryan was a good movie, have not seen jar head yet but hope it is a good movie, hamburger hill great, i think Torah Torah Torah was also a good war movie. so i'm saying is that there is a lot of great war movies that i would love to own on DVD someday. and i just would like everybody to know that.

sol- Even though the low budget of this film shows through at times, it still manages to be a compelling and intense portrayal of the whole experience of being sent to Vietnam, right from boot camp up to fighting. It really feels like one is there is at times, and it is fascinating to watch the changes that characters undergo in the course of the film. The symbolic soccer themes and ideas do not always work, but they still retain some power. The camera-work and editing suits the project fine, and the film also has an excellent, haunting song, "Here I Am", to go with the material. It is quite similar in many ways to 'Full Metal Jacket', and even though the technical side and acting might be inferior here, this is still one hell of a fine movie depicting the experiences of being involved in war from a recruit's point of view.