My review was written in March 1987 after watching the film at a Midtown Manhattan screening room.
"The Hanoi Hilton" is a lame attempt by writer-director Lionel Chetwynd to tell the story of U. S. prisoners at Hoa Lo Prison, in Hanoi during the Vietnam War,. Special pleading aside (pic's end credits 16 P. O. W.'s for their assistance, listing on-screen the extent of their incarceration), pic is a slanted view of traditional prison camp sagas, injecting lot of hindsight and taking right-wing positions tht do a disservice to the very human drama of the subject.
Chetwynd missteps very early on in this overlong (exceeding two hours running time) picture, with the characterization of Aki Aleong as the cultured but sadistic martinet of a prison commandant. Aleong's performance is technically okay, but film fans will immediately recognize the verbal cadence and sinister styling as right out of Richard Loo's memorably hissable (and often-quoted) performance in "The Purple Heart" in 1944. What worked during World War II as propaganda won't wash in a 1987 feature film.
Michae Moriarty heads a curiously bland cast portraying P. O. W.'s on a set that conjures up "Hogan's Heroes" rather than the gritty realism intended (pic was lensed in California with unconvincing junlge location scenes adn stock footage for action material). He's thrust into a position of authority when the ranking officer played by Lawrence Pressman is taken off to be tortured. Episodic structure introduces new prisoners as more pilots are shot down over a roughly 10-year span (including some comic relief such as one prisoner who says he fell off his ship accidentally and was captured).
Pic is desperately lacking side issues or subplots of interest (such a the fun black humor or interpersonal rivalries of such forerunners as Bryan Forbes' film of James Clavell's "King Rat") with Chetwynd monotonously hammering away at the main issue of survival in the face of inhuman treatment. Main thematic point which carries the narrative was done far better in "The Bridge on the River Kwai", namely, that the prisoners must maintain military discipline and lines of authority by rank at all costs, lest their captors isolate and break them down.
There is an intrinsic interest watching the ensemble cast overcome their travails, but unbelievability intrudes, especially in later reels when characters start mouthing statements about the war that benefit from years of hindsight. Worse yet, in attempting to present the P. O. W.s' point of view, Chetwynd moves deep into poor-taste territory with verbal potshots at Bertrand Russell and Senator William Fulbright, an embarrassing pastiche of Jane Fonda (an actress wearing a "Klute" wig sitting next to a guy with a bad complexion is supposed to represent the star, renamed Paula, visiting North Vietnam), and a purely right-wing portrait of a British journalist who co vers up a P. O. W.'s bloody, torture-induced wounds so his newsreel camera won't show them and distrub his pro-North Vietnam interview. This is propaganda pure and simple and sounds particularly loathsome (relative to the right's pronouncements lately regarding the Iran/contra affair) when characters blame the news media back home reporting on the war for exacerbating the prisoners' problems.
Cast struggles with this intractable material, with the more familiar faces, such as Jeffrey Jones, Paul Le Mat and David Soul, emerging far too laidback for their roles. At the other extreme, Michael Russo overdoes it as the heinous interrogation office named (no kidding) Fidel the Cuban. That presumably rules out the film being invited to next year's Havana Film Festival.
Pic was once on track by Chetwynd as a telefilm, and given a network's standards & practices office, which would have removed the scurrilous material, it would undoubtedly have worked better than as a low-budget theatrical feature.
"The Hanoi Hilton" is a lame attempt by writer-director Lionel Chetwynd to tell the story of U. S. prisoners at Hoa Lo Prison, in Hanoi during the Vietnam War,. Special pleading aside (pic's end credits 16 P. O. W.'s for their assistance, listing on-screen the extent of their incarceration), pic is a slanted view of traditional prison camp sagas, injecting lot of hindsight and taking right-wing positions tht do a disservice to the very human drama of the subject.
Chetwynd missteps very early on in this overlong (exceeding two hours running time) picture, with the characterization of Aki Aleong as the cultured but sadistic martinet of a prison commandant. Aleong's performance is technically okay, but film fans will immediately recognize the verbal cadence and sinister styling as right out of Richard Loo's memorably hissable (and often-quoted) performance in "The Purple Heart" in 1944. What worked during World War II as propaganda won't wash in a 1987 feature film.
Michae Moriarty heads a curiously bland cast portraying P. O. W.'s on a set that conjures up "Hogan's Heroes" rather than the gritty realism intended (pic was lensed in California with unconvincing junlge location scenes adn stock footage for action material). He's thrust into a position of authority when the ranking officer played by Lawrence Pressman is taken off to be tortured. Episodic structure introduces new prisoners as more pilots are shot down over a roughly 10-year span (including some comic relief such as one prisoner who says he fell off his ship accidentally and was captured).
Pic is desperately lacking side issues or subplots of interest (such a the fun black humor or interpersonal rivalries of such forerunners as Bryan Forbes' film of James Clavell's "King Rat") with Chetwynd monotonously hammering away at the main issue of survival in the face of inhuman treatment. Main thematic point which carries the narrative was done far better in "The Bridge on the River Kwai", namely, that the prisoners must maintain military discipline and lines of authority by rank at all costs, lest their captors isolate and break them down.
There is an intrinsic interest watching the ensemble cast overcome their travails, but unbelievability intrudes, especially in later reels when characters start mouthing statements about the war that benefit from years of hindsight. Worse yet, in attempting to present the P. O. W.s' point of view, Chetwynd moves deep into poor-taste territory with verbal potshots at Bertrand Russell and Senator William Fulbright, an embarrassing pastiche of Jane Fonda (an actress wearing a "Klute" wig sitting next to a guy with a bad complexion is supposed to represent the star, renamed Paula, visiting North Vietnam), and a purely right-wing portrait of a British journalist who co vers up a P. O. W.'s bloody, torture-induced wounds so his newsreel camera won't show them and distrub his pro-North Vietnam interview. This is propaganda pure and simple and sounds particularly loathsome (relative to the right's pronouncements lately regarding the Iran/contra affair) when characters blame the news media back home reporting on the war for exacerbating the prisoners' problems.
Cast struggles with this intractable material, with the more familiar faces, such as Jeffrey Jones, Paul Le Mat and David Soul, emerging far too laidback for their roles. At the other extreme, Michael Russo overdoes it as the heinous interrogation office named (no kidding) Fidel the Cuban. That presumably rules out the film being invited to next year's Havana Film Festival.
Pic was once on track by Chetwynd as a telefilm, and given a network's standards & practices office, which would have removed the scurrilous material, it would undoubtedly have worked better than as a low-budget theatrical feature.