We Were Soldiers (2002)

When Mel Gibson, as Army Lieut. Col. Hal Moore, steps off the chopper that carried his air cavalry into a hostile Vietnam landing zone, We Were Soldiers becomes a cinematic meat grinder that mirrors the true story it's based on. The problem is, by the time we get there, we've already sat through almost an hour of the sappiest character melodrama since ''Pearl Harbor'' (which was also penned by ''Soldiers'' writer-director Randall Wallace, who apparently never met a blatant foreshadow he didn't like). But, man, when those poor souls hit the ground...brutal, just like war.