Review – Courage Under Fire

Denzel Washington and Meg Ryan star in this Rashomon-style mystery. Washington plays an Army officer investigating the circumstances surrounding Ryan’s character’s death, though to determine whether or not she should receive the Medal of Honor rather than to figure out if she was murdered. The plot is complicated by a lot of sub-drama, including friendly-fire casualties, drinking problems, press leaks and the like. It might have been a more interesting film if the macho hadn’t been quite so thick. Further, like many action movies of late, it earns serious demerits for combining whispered dialogue and eardrum-rupturing combat sequences with little or no buffer in between. See if desperate