Rain

This movie isn't a big budget picture, big budget Apocalypse Now wasn't needed. Good old fashion story of Boy and his Dog or in this case a Soldier and his dog. There are some parts that may make sensitive people misty. Looked like they were walking through the MASH lot. This is basically a good story that takes place in Vietnam. Closed-minded people who don't trust a dog's instinct alone vs. those who have trust in the loyal companion.

Being an ex Queensland (Australian) Prison dog handler the piece that stood out for me as a major flaw was that a dog would never be allowed to be "off lead" when in this environment - the chances of loss of control of the dog and in fact loosing him would be too great To take the Nurse into the situation he did was unforgivable and the fact that once the persons who were attempting to take the dog, over powered they did not grab the weapons from them In Vietman there was a bounty on the ears from the dogs and the handlers patches Overall it was entertaining If anybody knows where I can obtain a copy please let me know There was an excellent documentary on Pay Television called "War Dogs" where they interviewed ex handlers,and persons who donated the dogs They re-enacted some situations that handlers and their dogs had been in and highlighted the failure to recognise the job that these dogs did during the war Most of them were handed to the Veitnamese or put down after the war ended How could a handler just walk away from his dog and return home without it after the bond that would have been formed with the dog and the love and devotion that the dog would have given during its working life When I retired from the Dog Squad I took my dog with me and he passed away six years after we retired

"Krammer" passed away at aged 11 and I had him cremated I intend to have his ashes buried with me when it is my time - he will never be forgotten

This movie is a story of dogs in Vietnam. It is about a dog named Rain that must over-come his fears while serving in the war. He is mostly afraid of being in the water. When the team has to cross a deap river, he makes it across with a rope and raps it around the tree. He than helps his platoon cross the river. It is simler to The Green Berets expect for that Rain has a dog. I recommand this movie to all IMDB users. It is a great movie. I saw it on Animal Planet. It is truly great.

I started watching this film late at night and despite the awful acting and sickeningly heart-rending story-line, I had to watch to the end to see what happened. Rain turns in the best performance out of all the actors, especially in the "overcoming his fear of water" scene, and has no doubt gone on to better things since this film. It was weird though that it was such compelling viewing.

Unfortunately the end was nauseatingly happy.

It is a good change to see a war movie which depicts an aspect of the war which is rarely talked or heard about. Rather than show full-blown action sequences with gung-ho soldiers ready to give it to the enemy, we see a side of the war that shows that it is not only humans that face the prospect of sacrificing their lives for a particular cause.

Before this film I had no idea that dogs played such a large role in what was the longest war to have been fought in the 20th century. Of the 4,500 German shepherds that travelled to Vietnam only 1 in 10 survived to return home. A fact which is very duanting I agree.

The delivery of the story was very poor however. As much as the director tried to be original in depicting how he would have seen the war we see many stereotypes brought out in a very cheap sense with your "hard-core" group of soldiers which found it hard to accept Rain's help early in the film which ended up with the "oh I owe my life to that dog" type of relationship.

The production company could have also made a bigger effort in using actual weapons and equipment that were actually used in the time. The rifles used by the soldiers for example was the "M16A2" (first issued to American troops in 1985)is actually an upgraded version of the original "M16A1" used during the Vietnam war. The helicopters used during the Vietnam war were of course the Bell UH-1 helicopter, not the Bell 206- B3 as shown in the movie because it was designed primarily for civilian use not military.

But I guess the movie could have been worst had they not salvaged it by adding that typical "war-time romance" into the story to give the movie some sort of lift (not much of it though).

Overall a 2/5 stars from me.