Wholl Stop the Rain?
Written and produced by Stone himself, based on his National Book Award Winning Dog Soldiers, it is also the best movie depiction of the Vietnam War. That is not to say WHO’LL STOP THE RAIN is a conventional War Movie, nor is it really a film about combat in Vietnam. Only the first few scenes show battle, and about a third of the way through, the action sails away from Vietnam to the U.S.A. and never returns. However, I can’t think of another film that so economically shows what the War, in all its cruelty, was like abroad, and how devastating and disconnecting it was for the society back home. The film begins with shots under its credits of a murky battlefield, a ghostly radio voice calling down what we later realize is “friendly fire” on a hapless company. As the name of Director Karel Reisz disappears, an explosion almost kills Correspondent John Converse (Michael Moriarty), the “enabler” of the story. Interspersed with images of carnage caused by the mistaken shelling, we see John,
