Amor y honor

I enjoyed watching this entire movie.

Nothing like a romantic movie centered around one of the major wars we've had in the past.

This was actually a very good film. The first 15 minutes into it I thought to myself 'Oh boy, another cruddy movie bites the dust', but this film, in a very subtle way, comes into it's own and blossoms into an endearing story. A very well acted movie all around. I always like Teresa Palmer and I was very impressed with Liam Hemsworth as well. Liam reminds me of a young Val Kilmer in this film and I can ensure you that Hemsworth's career will continue to rise.

Furthermore, I have to give major props to the DP of this film. This is a film with a very limited budget, but the DP does a fantastic job with the quality of each shot. Pretty brilliant the way everything is shot in an 'interior' like style since the budget is low, very smart shooting in that close-up, interior shot style.

Lastly, this is a film that raises some questions about the Vietnam War, questions that have never been addressed in a Vietnam War film before (or at least any Vietnam war film I've seen). Pretty thought provoking. All in all, a film worth watching.

I found this DVD in a bargain basket at a Walmart grocery store. Forget the politics for a few minutes. I'm a conservative, but I really don't think this movie was about the Vietnam War. It was about women as "muses." Muses are inspirations for artists and others.

The whole movie is based upon the concept of a special girl as the inspiration for a special soldier's courage. One loses it and one gains it. I like that.

Liam Hemsworth plays a cliché adequately. He's the ladies' man who thinks of himself as the leading man of every moment of life. But I like the way they paired a guy who has never committed to anything, with a guy (the other male lead)who has always been about commitment.

I totally get the fact that the other guy is in love with the small town girl he left months ago, but clearly she has changed dramatically. At first you ask yourself why he would continue to want a girl who has become such a daffy hippie. But you have to realize that he still thinks of her as who she was before.

There is some balance in terms of the portrayal of different cliché types of the 60s era. The hippies are exposed as posers and the soldiers as neither patriotic nor traitorous. They were just generic young dudes trying to survive, albeit the more conservative lead volunteered and had that honor code as part of his personality.

At first I didn't really understand why the Hemsworth guy would even like the blonde he meets. He's a soldier and she's just some stupid Leftist. But then I understood that he admired her commitment to anything, since had never been committed.

This is a low budget film with plenty of plot loopholes. Neither guy went to see his parents on leave from Vietnam in America. One guy falls "in love," in less than a week." There's a pristine lake for swimming and no one else is using it, except our lovebirds on a beautiful day.

There were more anti-Vietnam War statements than pro or neutral, so if that upsets you, you may want to stay away. But if you have patience, you may appreciate the theme of love inspiring soldiers.

The movie did not rely on a clichéd soundtrack of classic 60s songs. There may have been a few, but I don't remember any, so it could not have been too obnoxious.

Speaking as a Vietnam war veteran who arrived in Vietnam the same summer as the movie takes place (1969) and who went on R&R in 1970, I found "Love and Honor" to be terribly annoying and insulting in its blaring inaccuracies that indicate that the producers did not employ (or else didn't listen to) any form of technical advisor.

1: When going on R&R (or leave) from Vietnam, we traveled in civilian clothes, not in our jungle fatigues.

2: When in any form of uniform, we wore an insignia showing rank. Those in the Army (soldiers) in Vietnam wore small, black, metal rank insignias that the enemy could not see from a distance. The guys in "Love and Honor" are not wearing any rank insignias at all.

3: The movie touts "military travels free." That is only when traveling on a military plane or a military chartered plane when the individual has specific orders to fly. When flying commercial, we showed our (leave or PCS) orders and then got 50% off by flying "Space Available," meaning we may or may not be getting on the next flight or the flight after that or the flight after that. There is absolutely no way any military member could have been on R&R in Hong Kong and from there flown out - let alone fly all the way to and all the way back from some location in the continental United States. And if the two soldiers had had any plans to try that stupid move, they would have elected to take R&R in Honolulu, not Hong Kong.

4: In one scene the soldier tries go say hello to a "round eye" in the states and he gets the finger and a buzz off, baby killer. He mumbles "whatever happened to 'thank you for your service.'" "Thank you for your service" was not invented until the recent, Middle East wars. The first time I heard, "Thank you for your service" was in 2014, when somebody noticed that my car, parked on Fort Bragg, has a (North Carolina) Vietnam Veteran license plate. When we got back from Vietnam (between 1965 and 1973), at best, nobody mentioned our service in that war at all.

¨Military fly free.¨

Love and Honor is yet another lame attempt at trying to make a chick flick appealing to men by adding some action, which in this case happened to be the Vietnam War. The only problem is that the action scenes only take place during the beginning of the film and the rest of the story is a plain formulaic chick flick which happens to star young good looking actors in order to appeal to its audience. Love and Honor isn't anything we haven't seen before in hundreds of other rom-coms and in everyday TV series. This film is Danny Mooney's directorial debut after having worked mostly as an actor in the industry. The script which is hard to believe wasn't adapted from a Nicholas Spark novel, was written by Jim Burnstein and Garrett K. Schiff, but one has to assume that they were deeply inspired by him when coming up with this story. One of the main issues I had with the film (apart from the cheesy scripts and characters) was that it never felt to me that we were in 1969. The production design team never managed to transport us into that world, like other great films have done so (more recently Argo). I can see why some people might enjoy this film, especially girls, considering it is a chick flick and has some likable young actors, but artistically it has little value. There are plenty of other great independent rom- coms that are worth checking out instead of this.

The story takes place in 1969 as we follow a group of American soldiers in Vietnam trying to survive the war. Mickey (Liam Hemsworth) is in charge of the radio equipment, while Joiner (Austin Stowell) has a special talent for recognizing explosive wires hidden throughout the place. He is the main reason why everyone is still alive, but there is a motivation for his attention to detail. Joiner is in love with Jane (Aimee Teegarden) and all he can think of is surviving along with his friends in order to return home safely and marry the girl of his dreams. Right before the soldiers are given a week off duty, Joiner gets a letter from Jane claiming she wants to break up with him. In order to win her back, Joiner decides to sneak back to Michigan during their week off. Mickey, an uncompromising young soldier, decides to help Joiner and make sure he returns without being caught. Thus the two soldiers arrive in Michigan and catch up with Jane, who is calling herself Juniper now and involved in an anti-war movement along with several other teens. Joiner wins her love back when Mickey claims they have deserted the war in protest, and ends up falling for one of Juniper's friends, Candace (Teresa Palmer). The two men experience the surreal counter culture of the Vietnam War back home, and at the same time end up falling in love while the entire world has their eyes on men's first voyage to the moon.

Whenever you don't have a solid script it's hard for the performances to be strong and credible. Liam Hemsworth and Teresa Palmer are very good looking actors and shared some chemistry, but the entire premise was so cheesy that it was hard to believe their story. Love and Honor ends up being yet another romantic melodrama that never explores the true value of the two words in the title. Aimee Teegarden and Austin Stowell served only as the back story for the main one, but they too lacked chemistry. As much as the producers wanted to appeal to a male audience, I think this film will only seduce young girls. It doesn't do much for a male audience and it is just another formulaic cliché film that does nothing to break from the boundaries of the genre.

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