Courage Under Fire

As profound and intelligent as it is moving, and that makes this memorable motion picture one of 1996's best. more

Intelligent, involving and serious, it is as honestly emotional as Hollywood allows itself to get, a story of the search for wartime truth whose own concern for the genuine makes all the difference. more

In Washington's haunted eyes, in the stunning cinematography of Roger Deakins (Fargo) that plunges into the mad flare of combat, in the plot that deftly turns a whodunit into a meditation on character and in Zwick's persistent questioning of authority, Courage Under Fire honors its subject and its audience. more

The end of the film understandably lays on the emotion a little heavily, but until then Courage Under Fire has been a fascinating emotional and logistical puzzle--almost a courtroom movie, with the desert as the courtroom. more

Denzel Washington is riveting. more

A large-scale military drama with a quiet, almost mournful center. more

A sober, intelligent drama with surprising integrity. more

This is - gasp! - a Hollywood movie actually daring to bare its teeth at silly American flag-waving. more

Despite its underlying predictability, Courage Under Fire manages warmth, intelligence and a healthy share of surprises. more

Edward Zwick's high-minded new outing offers plenty of old-fashioned movie virtues such as believable action, plausible psychology, fully played-out confrontations and honest emotions. more

"Now let's kill 'em all." Edward Zwick, director of top movies like "Glory" and "The Last Samurai", is probably a distant relative to Steven Spielberg. Most of his movies suffer from an overdose of melodrama, and "Courage Under Fire" is a perfect example of that. I'm not a big fan of these movies that market themselves as war movies but end up being some desk officers chase for the truth. They tend to be quite slowpaced and all of a sudden pumped with aggressive discussions between two sides. The opening scene must be one of the most stupid war scenes I've ever witnessed. I'll admit, I'm... more

Wow, I had no idea the Edward Zwick had so many good movies till II started thinking about all of the films he directed. Don't let the fact that Meg Ryan is given a staring role fool you. Yes, she does a cheesy job, but she is really not doing much in the movie. Denzel really carries the whole movie and LDP and Damon help when they can. With a better actress in for Ryan this would have been a 4 1/2 star movie. more

One of my favorites. A movie that will keep you guessing till the very end. Nat Serling is sent home from the Persian Gulf with traumas and few prospects after being in a friendly fire incident. He is given what should have been an open-and-shut case: investigate a female chopper pilot for the Medal of Honor. Things become tricky quickly as Serling's support is withdrawn when he discovers discrepancies in the witness' stories and he will have to risk everything to find out the truth about what happened on a dark night in Iraq. Magnetizing throughout, this picture is well-conceived and very... more

The basic plot line of "Courage Under Fire" is that Lt. Col Nathaniel Serling (Denzel Washington) is investigating an incident during the Gulf War to determine whether or not the Medal of Honor should be awarded posthumously to Captain Karen Walden (Meg Ryan). It does not take us long to find out that the title of this film refers to both Serling and Walden. The initial story on Walden, the pilot of a rescue helicopter, is that she made a spectacular rescue of a downed helicopter crew, then fought off attacking Iraquis after her own copter crashed, dying right before the besieged group was... more