Possible spoilers ahead...
On April 2, 1972, 53-year-old Lieutenant Colonel Iceal Hambleton, a SAC missile expert, was the sole survivor when the electronic-warfare EB-66 aircraft was shot down near Vietnam's DMZ. He landed near middle of 30000 NVA troops who were launching an offensive. This film is based upon that event, via a book that I believe is a fictionalized version of the actual events. The film is excellent, but what I know of the real story would have perhaps made at least as compelling a movie. Still, taken as a sort-of-based-on-a-true story kind of thing, "Bat 21" succeeds on all levels. It's one of those movies that I can watch over and over, and have.
The acting is superlative, from all involved. Gene Hackman is always excellent and here he's in fine form. Danny Glover, too, is great in his role as the 'Bird Dog' spotter pilot who remotely helps Hambleton through his ordeal in Vietnamese 'Indian country.' Jerry Reed, the talented Nashville guitar-picker (his 1967 and 1968 work on Elvis Presley's sessions resulted in some of the tastiest material that Elvis ever produced) who achieved movie fame with his trucker roles in Burt Reymolds' good-ole-boys projects, is perfect as the CO of the air-rescue team. He was also instrumental in getting this movie made. Other actors in smaller roles are also great, particularly the 'Jolly Green' pilot played by David Marshall Grant.
The character that Gene Hackman plays is singularly unprepared for his surroundings -- a departure from the kinds of roles that he had in films like "The French Connection, "The Package," "Mississippi Burning," etc -- and is forced to face the reality of death up close for the first time in his death-dealing professional career. the whole hiding-in-the jungle, avoiding-the-NVA, trying-not-to-get-impaled-on-punji sticks experience that he goes through is wearying and paranoia-inducing to behold. The cinematography and use of locations in this film is spectacular, too, and really heightens the narrative effect. It seems amazing that a combat-green 53-year-old golf addict could survive the conditions of the Vietnamese jungle, let alone while being hunted by North Vietnamese troops, let alone for as many days as he lasted. On top of it all -- as in reality -- he called in air strikes on a crossroads at which men and materiel were massing.
Among the more poignant scenes are his killing a Vietnamese man -- the failure to communicate that led to the fatal incident is a metaphor for US failure to understand the people that they were charged with protecting and fighting -- and his speechlessness when silently confronted by the man's family. Also fairly profound is a scene in which the wounded Hambleton, about at the end of his tether, is saved from a booby trap by a young boy. That and other incidents, including the panicked flight of a Vietnamese soldier before an American carpet-bombing attack, highlight the inherent inanity of war and the price of the ultimately pointless Vietnam conflict. On the other hand, I defy anyone to watch the bad guys' treatment of the downed Jolly Green crew and not feel anger toward them. Sure, that didn't happen (at least not in the real rescue of Hambleton), but it sure enough gives you a better understanding of how soldiers might torch a village and even commit 'war crimes' in retaliation. All too good an understanding, actually.
The real story was perhaps even more remarkable, with Ham on the run for 12 days in April of 1972 before being rescued by a team that consisted of a Navy SEAL (later awarded the Medal of Honor) and an ARVN Ranger. The recovery of Colonel Hambleton was the biggest rescue operation of the Vietnam War. The protracted rescue resulted in the award of 234 medals and the downing of helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, including a second "bird-dog" and a 'Jolly Green' rescue helicopter. Eleven people died to retrieve Hambleton, two were captured, and five aircraft were shot down. On the day that Ham was shot down, two of the helicopters sent to pick him up were also shot down. Lieutenant (not Captain) Mark (not Bartholomew) Clark (grandson of a well-known WWII general...to further distance reality from the film, I believe that Clark was of Caucasian extraction), spotting from an OV-10A Bronco in support of the rescue mission, was shot down the very next day (with another officer, the actual pilot, who was captured after a few hours) and ended up evading capture almost as long as did Ham. I know that the facts might have been changed to focus on the interplay between two men but that's a pretty big change and I suspect that the movie would have been just as great with both leads on the ground. Hambleton WAS encouraged by the FACs in the Broncos and I guess that the producers (or the man who wrote the original book) decided to roll them all up into Danny Glover's Clark. By the way, Hambleton was rescued by following a golf-based code but I believe that the idea originated with someone back at HQ rather than from the downed officer. Okay, so it's all fictionalized, and I guess it's still 'based on a true story.' LOOSELY based, though. William Anderson, who co-wrote the screenplay, wrote "Bat 21" as a novel, so it's not that Hollywood took it upon itself to fictionalize because the tale was already so.
Ironically enough, Hambleton is called "Ham" in the film but was known to his friends in real life as "Gene," as in Gene Hackman.
15 out of 19 found this helpful.
Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
