A Displaced Films production in association with Pangea Prods. (International sales: Displaced Films, Los Angeles.) Produced by David Zeiger, Evangeline Griego, Aaron Zarrow. Executive producer, Peter Broderick. Co-producer, Louise Rosen. Directed, written by David Zeiger.
With: Jane Fonda, Donald Duncan, Howard Levy, Keith
Mather, Oliver Hirsch, Susan Schnall, Randy Rowland, Louis Font, Dave Cline,
Bill Short, Dave Blalock, Greg Payton, Darnell Summers, Michael Wong, Terry
Whitmore, Joe Bangert, Richard Boyle, Jerry Lembcke, Terry Iverson, Tom
Bernard.
Jul. 14, 2005 By ROBERT KOEHLER,
Variety
Because it's bolstered by proud memories of Vietnam vets who turned against the war, "Sir! No Sir!" rings with an exultant, even elated tone.
Documaker David Zeiger ("Senior Year") sacrifices
some depth and detail for a panoramic view of the organized antiwar movement
among vets, providing a gallery of warriors unlike those associated with combat
valor.
Perfectly timed with new doubts about the Iraq war and with the
re-emergence of participant Jane Fonda -- who hasn't been so electrifying on
screen in years -- pic should do solid specialty biz after nabbing audience doc
award at the Los Angeles fest.
John Kerry's 2004
presidential campaign revived public discussion about the phenomenon of
thousands of U.S. troops openly opposing the war they were being sent to (or,
more often, returning from), and while Zeiger's film clearly benefits from this
re-opening of the controversial topic, it's also notable that Kerry's name is
never mentioned.
Instead, other lesser-known stars of the vets' antiwar movement,
such as Donald Duncan and Dr. Howard Levy (the latter a subject of a
much-publicized court martial), start off the saga.
According to some of the more than two dozen onscreen participants,
soldiers generally backed the Vietnam war until North Vietnam's 1968 Tet
Offensive exposed the U.S. mission as fatally flawed. This coincided with a
further rise in the already well-developed antiwar movement at home, as well as
a wave of domestic and racial unrest and political assassinations.
What "Sir! No Sir!" crucially restores are many
specifics of the troops' resistance, even as it dispels myths regarding rifts
between vets and civilian protestors. AWOL vets chaining themselves alongside
priests and civilians in a San Francisco church, and subsequent acts of civil
disobedience and rioting in the Presidio stockade, underline how serious the
antiwar mood had become.
Pic partly depends on the recollections of individuals, among them
Louis Font (the first West Point grad to ever refuse service), Terry Whitmore
(with his much-publicized Swedish exile) and Bill Short (whose tearful
recounting of tallying "body counts" is extremely emotional).
Still, it's group actions that best capture the period's
collective spirit -- a loose network of vet-published underground antiwar
newspapers or accounts of open defiance of authority in the field.
Clips from the "Winter Soldier" hearings
organized by Vietnam Veterans Against the War (and employing footage from the
stunning and long unseen docu of the same name) provide only a glimpse into the
hearings' accounts of savagery that far surpass the worst atrocities at Abu
Ghraib.
And while the pic tends to jump around from subject to subject
without ever exploring any one aspect in depth, still such sidetrips can
provide a service, such as author Jerry Lembcke quashing the myth of returning
Viet vets being spat upon by antiwar activists at airports.
Fonda's memories of performing the lead in the "FTA
Show" in 1971 (an anti-Bob Hope open-air show whose initials were
adopted to mean "Fuck the Army") insert a giddiness into the
pic that clues viewers in to the counterculture excitement of the era. Fonda is
in rare form both in the present-day interview and in a generous range of clips
that counter the dour Hanoi Jane stereotype.
Zeiger appears influenced by the swift style of documaker Stacy
Peralta, whose taste for grabber sound bites and funky animated graphics is
pleasantly all over the film. May Rigler, as co-lenser and editor, plays a
major role in keeping things at a smart, entertaining clip. Narration by Troy
Garrity is unobtrusive.
Future programmers will be wise to double-bill this, for stark
stylistic contrast, with Emile De Antonio's angrier and more bitterly ironic "In
the Year of the Pig."
Reviewed at Los Angeles Film Festival (competing), June 23, 2005.
Running time: 85 MIN.
