December 16 movie: Pork Chop Hill. Gregory Peck stars as a captain whose men are ordered to take and hold a hill in Korea "at any cost." Not only are the American soldiers outnumbered and undersupplied, they all know the battle is futile. The hill is strategically meaningless but is a point of contention at the peace negotiations. There's no gory violence a la Saving Private Ryan but the horror of war and chaos of battle is amply depicted.
The only false note for me was the very end, a stirring monologue by Peck about how much the soldiers had achieved for their country. But the whole point of the movie (for me at least) was the pointlessness of their heroism and sacrifice. But I guess the movie is ambiguous enough that, while it seemed like a powerful anti-war film to me, it could be just as powerful a pro-war movie to a hawkish viewer.
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