Courage Under Fire: Critic Reviews

Despite its underlying predictability, Courage Under Fire manages warmth, intelligence and a healthy share of surprises.

Part Rashomon, part The Caine Mutiny, the first major-studio film to deal with 1991's Desert Storm not only captures the terror of battle but also its wrenching aftermath.

I wasn't particularly moved or riveted with suspense.

A downright entertaining combo or mystery, melodrama and action adventure.

The end of the film understandably lays on the emotion a little heavily, but until then Courage Under Fire has been a fascinating emotional and logistical puzzle.

A carefully conceived, dramatically honorable picture that treats its subject with clarity and intelligence, especially by contemporary standards.

At the end of Courage Under Fire, you feel torn between admiration and annoyance with the filmmakers, who take an attention-grabbing premise and skillfully develop it into a conclusion that's pure piffle.

Courage Under Fire is as profound and intelligent as it is moving, and that makes this memorable motion picture one of 1996's best.

Courage Under Fire honors its subject and its audience.

While its re-creation of combat is not Courage Under Fire's most involving aspect, the film succeeds in making the Gulf War seem more of a real event than all the footage shipped back on CNN could.

Military drama deploys plenty of violence, swearing.

As the detective-story flashback structure gets under way, what initially seemed adherence to dramatic and moral cliche becomes more complex and interesting.

Denzel Washington gives as fine a performance as I have seen him give.

A provocative film with Oscar caliber performances. (published 7-19-96)

Denzel Washington reinforces his image as a serious leading man who dominates a film with his quiet intensity and aura of introspection.

Underrated war flick with a surprisingly effective performance by Meg Ryan

When [Washington's] long pent-up emotions finally break through the surface, the result is at once exhilarating and heartbreaking.

Excellent military mystery. Rashomon style point of view play.

Washington's inherent gravity anchors his troubled and troublesome character, and Ryan, whom we'd all but written off as a perpetual pom-pom girl, takes on an atypical role and acquits herself, well, honorably.