A film that should be seen, just as Stone's book should be read. If it leaves a deliberately nasty taste in the mouth, it underrates no one's intelligence in the process.

The movie works mostly because it's so well told on the narrative level.

A remarkably faithful and astute adaptation of a strong novel, the film condenses Stone's book, which won the National Book Award for fiction in 1975, without doing irreparable damage to its story, principal characters or larger meanings.

The best movie made in America by a European director since John Boorman's Point Blank and one of the few about the Vietnam experience likely to prove of permanent interest.