We recently bought this film on Blu Ray and watched it last night with the aid of a bottle of wine. It's in basically two halves. The first is a slow-burn, with our hero (William Devane) returning to his home town with his buddy (Tommy Lee Jones) after spending years in a Vietcong prison camp. He is given a true hero's welcome and receives a new Cadillac and over $2000 raised by the locals. He has trouble settling back into the community and gets pally with a pretty local girl who works at the bar. The film shifts up a gear when a band of thugs invade his home in search of his cash. They also kill his family in cold blood. From this moment the temperature rises steadily as he and his new lady friend go in search of vengeance. It's good stuff in true 70's gritty style. A couple of complaints about the quality of the Blu-Ray release. First of all the print looks pretty poor - rather dull and marked with scratches and specks. I'm not sure it needed a Blu-Ray release at all, standard DVD would have been adequate. Second, the sound quality, especially the dialogue recording. The sound is restricted and the actors' words are difficult to follow, especially in indoor locations where there is the 'room effect'. This is not the fault of the transfer, it would have happened at the time the film was made. The budget was clearly small.
Overall it's a very enjoyable film and one which makes us think about the whole sorry mess of Vietnam and the generation who thought they were doing the right thing only to be treated so shabbily and left to deal with it.
Overall it's a very enjoyable film and one which makes us think about the whole sorry mess of Vietnam and the generation who thought they were doing the right thing only to be treated so shabbily and left to deal with it.