Courage Under Fire (1996)

Directed by Edward Zwick. Starring Denzel Washington, Lou Diamond Phillips, Matt Damon, Meg Ryan, Michael Moriarty, Scott Glenn, Seth Gilliam, Regina Taylor, Bronson Pinchot, Željko Ivanek, Ned Vaughn, Tim Guinee. [R]

A Gulf War veteran Army officer (Washington), tormented by his role in the friendly-fire deaths of a tank crew during a nighttime battle, is given the task of determining whether or not a Medivac Huey commander (Ryan), killed in action, deserves to become the first woman ever awarded the Medal of Honor. His superiors expect it to be an easy decision—a rubber-stamp approval done for show—but his investigation uncovers some inconsistencies in the stories of those under her command, leaving him to wonder who’s fabricating the truth and why. Well-acted and sometimes compelling, Patrick Sheane Duncan’s script has much to say about honor, duty, integrity and hypocrisy, but bites off more than it can chew with its Rashomon-lite technique, the unnecessary dramatic embellishment of Washington’s rocky relationship with his wife (Taylor), and its unconvincing depiction of Army brass, their motivations, and their flimsy authority (not surprisingly, the Department of Defense withdrew their cooperation before filming began). Director Zwick and composer James Horner lays it on a little thick at times (that final scene…), but at least there’s no surrender to sentimentality in sight. In an effective early role, Damon dropped forty pounds in order to establish a harrowingly frail spectre of guilt; appearing only in flashback, Ryan is cast so far against type that it takes a while to accept her in the hard-nosed, doughty part.

68/100