We Were Soldiers is a combat film that will have you glued to the TV. The story takes place during the first battle of the Vietnam War in 1965. Characters Lt. Col. Hal Moor (Mel Gibson), Julie Moor (Madeleine Stowe), and Sgt. Maj. Basil Plumley (Sam Elliot) will have you so into the movie you will feel like you have known their characters for years. They do an excellent job of portraying what the people went through back then, during those hard times.             As the movie begins it takes you on a battle scene from a French unit on patrol, and then when the movie actually begins it takes you ahead eleven years to the 1960’s. They show the difficulty of moving to new bases that military families have to do. This movie shows the closeness of the families of the troops sent out together. You will get attached to the characters and have to deal with their loss, almost as if they were a family friend that died. You really get the feel for the family, and the soldier’s. You begin to learn the hardships of the war, and what a soldier will do for another. Moor has to face decisions that will determine his spot in military history, and not going off what the other leaders in history did. You will see the beginning of lives, and the end of lives.            Director Randall Wallace does a great job of showing you the way the battles actually happened. He does not hold back on the graphics of the movie, which is what makes the movie seem more real, so you know what war is actually like. He filmed at all the right places that one would think of as a battlefield, and showed the trench war-fare great. He captured the family’s day to day lives, and the end of lives.            This Film really surprised me; I did not think I was going to like it as much as I did. This movie really gets you to fall in love with the characters, and really understand the way war works. The directors and producers of this film really did not hold back with the quality of this film, the graphics and actors they casted were all great. If you are looking for a good war film, or even a film where you have to learn the value of a good friendship this is the movie for you and I defiantly recommend you watch it.