Jetset971 This movie is a bit of an oddity to me. On the one hand it feels like very mediocre handling of a serious subject. On the other hand, it has some compelling scenes sprinkled, sparingly, over it. I feel for the soldiers and their perdicerment but the movie just gets bogged down in itself. Like it had no real direction to follow and just throws everything on the screen in a desperate hope that something will stick. If the filmmakers had spent more time on story development and less time on tired war clichés this would have been a much better film. Still, I keep going back to watch it because there is potential in this film. Here is my list of things that this movie could have done better.1). War Clichés: This movie was RIFE with every tired war cliché in the book. From the Evil Camp Comendant that acts like a petty dictator who plays mind games with the prisoners. To senior ranking officer who taps his monologue of inspiration via Morse code. You try not to groan but just cant help it.2). Focus! Focus! Focus!: This movie was all over the place. One minute the prisoners are in isolation the next they are being tortured the next they are being paraded and ridiculed the next they meet up with American anti war protesters! Come on! Too much on the plate! If they had zeroed in on one, or at most, two themes they might have developed a more grounded story.Hopefully, somebody someday will attempt another movie about this subject. When they do, I recommend that they watch this movie very carefully and beware of the pitfalls and mistakes it made.

mr_whud The Hanoi Hilton is a must-see film. Many leftists denounce its historical accuracy and positive portrayal of the men who fought and died to prevent the disaster that befell Vietnam. If you want to know what the men were really like, by all means see this film. Don't waste your time on Communist propaganda crap like the monstrosity Platoon. NOTE TO ALL LEFTISTS: As this movie shows, most of the soldiers who fought were courageous and honorable men, not mindless killers like the idiots in the media want you to believe.

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.

dinky-4 This movie seems to be a well-intentioned tribute to the American P.O.W.s held for years under brutal conditions in North Vietnam. However, the characters are flat, the attitudes simplistic, the ambiance never quite persuasive. Episodes and characters come and go without much impact. One of the movie's "highlights" consists of a montage-sequence in which a captured U.S. pilot played by David Anthony Smith is subjected to various kinds of torture. Accounts written by former POWs indicate that they suffered "rope" tortures and floggings delivered with whips made of strips of rubber taken from automobile tires. However, Smith's torture shows him being shocked with electrical wires alligator-clipped to his nipples. One of the prison guards then gleefully turns the crank on an electrical generator and Smith begins to writhe in torment -- a sight which prompts laughter from his delighted tormentors. Then the clips are transferred to Smith's genitals, though the camera angle discreetly avoids nudity. The guard again turns the crank and he and his colleagues break into unabashed laughter once more as Smith, his sexual organs now being "fried," dances in helpless agony. Dramatic, yes, but questionable. In his massively-detailed 1976 book, "P.O.W. - A Definitive History of the American Prisoner-of-War Experience in Vietnam, 1964-1973," author John G. Hubbell makes absolutely no mention of electricity being used in either nipple or genital torture. One gets the impression these tortures were included in "The Hanoi Hilton" simply because they fitted our notions of how fiendishly sadistic the Oriental mind can be.