In light of the fact that The Last Full Measure (2019) grossed only $3 million versus a $20 million budget, most people probably have not seen this film, making it s a movie you might have missed. Should you check it out?
There are some reasons the movie did not attract a large audience. When the film was released, it already was about a war that took place nearly fifty years earlier. The director Todd Robinson was not well known, and at times the production might seem like a TV movie rather than a feature film, with the starring role by a lesser known actor at the time, Sebastian Stan. While featuring some battle scenes, the movie is not really an action story about a battle, and viewers will already know who lived and died at the beginning. Further, the generic title of the film probably did not attract many viewers. Using an Abraham Lincoln quote from The Gettysburg Address that evokes the Civil War only confuses a potential viewer and tells them nothing about what the movie is about. Such a title could be slapped on any war movie (and is also the title of an earlier book about Vietnam). Finally, one reason that reviews were mixed might be that the title and the image on the poster seem to promise a movie set during a fight, most of the film takes place in Washington, D.C., years after the war has ended.
But The Last Full Measure, which took nearly 20 years to make from inception to final editing, is worth your time for two main reasons: First it is a rare film about the aftermath effects of war, doing for the Vietnam War in some ways what The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) did for World War II. Second, it features a number of great performances by many great actors. Even though they come and go, and most of them do not appear together for most of the film, there are wonderful appearances by Christopher Plumber, Peter Fonda, William Hurt, Ed Harris, Samuel L. Jackson, Diane Lane, Amy Madigan, and John Savage (whose appearance near the end connects the film back to one of the early great Vietnam War films, The Deer Hunter (1978)).
The Last Full Measure is based on a true story of the campaign to get a Medal of Honor for William H. Pitsenbarger, a U.S. Air Force Pararescueman during the Vietnam War. The film includes flashbacks to the battle where Pitsenbarger heroically saved many men. But the majority of the movie is set around the year 2000 where a Washington, D.C. official (Sebastian Stan) is assigned to investigate whether Pitsenbarger should get the Medal of Honor.
While much of the movie, including Pitsenbarger’s heroics, are true, many of the characters are fictionalized to varying degrees. The official’s story is very loosely based upon a real person and many of the vets are fictionalized versions of the veterans who worked to get Pitsenbarger the medal. But those differences do not take away from what the movie is really about. (For more on a comparison of the movie with the true story, check out this article from History vs. Hollywood.)
And what is the movie really about? It is about the effects of war on the survivors, beautifully portrayed by some great actors. I do not want to ruin the film for anyone who has not seen it, but only to suggest you give it a try. Is it a great war movie? No. But if you go in with modest expectations to see a movie about the effects of war on those touched by it, you might be pleasantly surprised that this movie you may never have heard of is a pretty good movie that you missed. You’ll see why so many great actors were attracted to these roles showing characters we rarely have seen on screen.
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If you have not seen the 1985 movie Runaway Train, it will take you back to the time when action movies were about more than explosions. Even though there is plenty of action this film, there also is a lot more.