a5c7b9f00b During the Vietnam War, a village that American forces are using to spy on the Ho Chi Minh Trail has its sacred elephant killed by the North Vietnamese Army because they were cooperating with the Americans. The villagers need an elephant for a ceremony that will occur within the week. Captain Sam Cahill, an easygoing man who is heading home, and his hotheaded replacement Captain TC Doyle scrounge up another elephant with the help of sneaky supply chief warrant officer David Poole, luckless farmboy Lawrence Farley, and short-timer Harvey Ashford, and transport it across South Vietnam to get it to the village on time, running into all sorts of transport problems, personality conflicts, and an NVA squad that wants the Americans out of the village. To keep the loyalty of a village during the Vietnam war, a U.S. Army officer and his unit struggle to deliver it a live elephant. OK, many have criticized this little flick for not being the traditional ugly, violent Vietnam war flick that we have all come to except; but keep in mind that this is a DISNEY production BASED on a real operation, not a documentary of what happened.<br/><br/>I do like this film for several reasons. First, it positively reflects the actions of the US military in Vietnam, whereas most movies on the subject don&#39;t portray our forces in the most positive manner. Secondly, it more accurately shows the mission of the Special Forces in working with indigenous peoples to counter an adversary, not the snake-eating, kill-everything-insight stereotype compounded by the Rambo series. Thirdly, I find the acting, dialogue and interactivity between the characters to be well done. This movie wasn&#39;t &quot;dumbed down&quot; to be family-friendly, it maintained a standard that showed Disney was serious about making a quality film.<br/><br/>So it may not be historically perfect, and it may not fit into many&#39;s preconceptionsto what a Vietnam war film should address; but accepting it for what it was intended to be–a Disney film addressing positive subject matter–and criticizing it under those objectives makes the outcome a success in my book. If you want to see soldiers killing natives and burning villages there are plenty of other films that depict such acts, but if you want to watch a movie based on an actual operation by USSF to positively impact a Vietnamese village during the war that Operation Dumbo Drop is the best choice. It may not compare to Apocalypse Now or Full Metal Jacket, but it is not intended to be like those film; but judged on its own it succeeds in meeting its objectives! While it seems a little far fetched to fall out of the plane with an elephant, Galileo proved long ago that heavy objects and light objects fall at the same speed. The only factor which changes is the wind resistance. A very light object (cardboard box) presents more wind resistance and so will fall slower. What&#39;s more, falling objects reach terminal velocity and so it is possible for an object with less wind resistance to &quot;catch up&quot;.
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372 weeks ago