The War (1994)

How sad is this?

Better Late Then Never

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

This Movie has pleasantly amazed me at how good it is, and has booked its place amongst my favorite movies list of all time. The Movie has great and realistic performances from Costner and Elijah Woods. The War in the Title is the Vietnam war which is the backdrop of the movie, but with that backdrop the real war is between the kids due to their poor lives in the 70s.It's a movie that is aimed at kids, but is also equally relevant to adults. The Message that this movie gives is beyond words, its one of those movies that you would love to waste your 2 hours on.I would recommend this movie to everyone.

Jon Avnet's 1994 flick 'The War' begins well, has a nice hearty message to convey and great performances working for it, but it's screenplay goes for a toss. The final 20-25 minutes are flawed, and one wonders was this drag even needed? 'The War' tells the story of a family, who are not in the best shape. The head of the family was a part of the Vietnam War, his wife suffered, and their kids are warring with their fellow aged people.'The War' has a wonderful first hour, in fact the portions between Elijah Wood and Kevin Costner are memorable and highly emotional. And their performances elevate those sequences. But the writing gets very weak in the final 20-25 minutes. It loses the pace completely, and even the honest moral the film tries to convey goes over-looked. The writing should've been more sharper! Jon Avnet's direction is decent. The dialogue at places, are lovely. Cinematopgraphy is perfect. Performances are top-notch: Kevin Costner and Elijah Wood are via for top honors, for their 'Tour De Force' portrayals. Mare Winningham and Lexi Faith Randall are excellent as well.On the whole, an honest film, that gets chum-bled up towards it's culmination. Nevertheless, it easily stands as a one-time watch!

Today I saw this movie for the first time and I was deeply touched by it. What I liked about the movie was the way it makes us realize what's important in life. Using no great special effects and no incredible shooting technologies this movie is worth seeing namely because of the way it makes your feelings come out into the open. It makes you think of the things you rarely stop to think of. The actors' play is wonderful and I can say this is the movie where I enjoyed Elijah Wood's playing more than anywhere else. "The War" is already in my personal Best-s. Spending two hours watching a movie like this is much more worthy than spending that time thinking of all those unimportant issues we are dealing with during all our lives. So I recommend you to watch this film and wake up your feelings.

As a teacher of scriptwriting I am using this film to demonstrate the art of dialog writing in a setting students and viewers don't see often. The dialog is authentic to the deep south, believable, has just the right amount of profanity and colloquial terminology, and is character specific. You can't easily exchange the speeches between characters and have scenes that work despite the fact all the characters are from the same rural community--try it and you'll see what I mean. In addition, the structure of the film is a fascinating study with its multi-layered plotting and casual way the story begins to unfold. At first, it seems this is a film without a plot--just a series of character studies--but the plotting eventually becomes apparent and its complex structure involves the viewer without grabbing you with a hook or obvious "problem to solve." Overall it's a fine example of how to write an involving, insightful message film.