It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

84C 'MoPic' is a military cameraman filming a Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol (LRRP) mission during the Vietnam War. LT is a lieutenant new in country and eager to climb the military ladder. OD (Richard Brooks) is a wise sergeant. Easy is short. With Pretty Boy, Hammer and Cracker, the group encounters the enemy and dangers along the way.This is what is today referred to as found footage movie. The movie is filmed through MoPic's camera point of view. What I love the most are the little insightful moments of the cat and mouse game with the North Vietnamese. Some of the 'talk' with the group gets a bit too written. Asking Cracker about his black leader is too on-the-nose. The low budget doesn't interfere too much. It forces the movie to focus on the small group. The action isn't as compelling as one would expect because it does get confused. In a way, it's more realistic but less cinematic. This is a fascinating experiment in filmmaking.

Long before "Cloverfield" earned praise for the immediacy of its approach to a "Godzilla" horror story by shooting from the perspective of a handy cam in the fist of a survivor, writer & director Patrick Sheane Duncan's "84C MoPic" pioneered this novel technique. This 95-minute, low-budget Vietnam War movie with its largely unknown cast boasts the distinction of being helmed by a 'Nam veteran. Deane emphasizes authenticity by lensing everything from the view point of a combat photographer. Indeed, the camera serves as the film's point of view, and Patrick maintains this point of view from fade-in to fade-out.Unquestionably, the conceit of "84C MoPic" is nothing short of brilliant. A combat photographer (Byron Thames of "Johnny Dangerously") films a reconnaissance unit choppered into the bush as a training film for the military. Deane's distinctive film then has not only an immediacy about it but it also contains a clever rational for its artless artistry. The closest thing in real life to "84C MoPic" is John Houston's World War II documentary "The Battle of San Pietro." Everything is seen from the camera and the camera is constantly in the rear because no cameraman would expose himself to enemy fire by standing in front of his own troops. The hand-held, cine'ma ve'rite' style of film-making fuels the realism of "84C Charlie MoPic." The soldiers do nothing in this movie that isn't thoroughly believable. The procedure of bagging and tagging a body hammers home hard the lack of glamor. "84C MoPic" manifests few pretensions and the character never argue about the validity of the Vietnam.If genuinely artistic photography were the only necessity for a great movie, then Deane's film would have amounted to a classic. Unfortunately, despite the excellence of Deane's first-person, in-your-face technique, "84C MoPic" provides only intermittently entertainment as an action-packed war story. Deane populates his screenplay with relatively bland, one-dimensional characters that rarely engage our sympathy. They lack charisma. Since we never become emotionally attached to any of them, the ones that die generate little concern for us. The G.I. humor is old and stale. Ultimately, despite some tense moments of combat near the end, "84C MoPic" is not memorable in the least. None of the characters stand out and the enemy is rarely seen. Deane occasionally undermines his powerful atmosphere of realism by having his camera running during a dangerous moment. Would anybody seriously risk their life by photographing an unsuspecting enemy who might hear the sounds of film whirling through their camera? Primarily, Deane's screenplay is an anthology of war story clichés. "84C MoPic" replicates the World War II movie cliché that the unit contained an ethnic collection of oddballs. Alas, these guys are bland, and the story is for the most part boring. There is the guy with less than a month to go before he is shipped home but is paranoid about his chances of survival. There is the green, inexperienced lieutenant, LT (Jonathan Emerson of "Graveyard Shift"),who couldn't find his own dog tags with his hands in broad daylight but volunteered for combat to earn a promotion. There is the angry black man simply named OD(Richard Brooks of NBC-TV's "Law & Order") who threatens to kill his superior officer. There is a backwoods North Carolina redneck,Cracker (Glenn Morshower of "Black Hawk Down"), who turns a blind eye to the black man and considers him a true brother, something that he admits would never happen back home. Each character addresses the other by their nicknames: 'Pretty Boy,''L-T,' 'Cracker,' and 'OD.' The performances are ordinary enough.Nobody hams it up, but they don't make much of an impression. There is nothing incredibly gory. The closest to real violence is the scene where an enemy sniper targets Pretty Boy. The sniper keeps on shooting the soldier and nobody can come to rescue. At one point, the soldier even tries to blow himself up with a hand grenade. Although the story is neither original nor dramatic enough, "84C MoPic" deserves three silver stars for its technique and its interpretation. The irony of the ending is a neat touch. Mind you, this movie isn't as memorable as "Apocalypse Now," "The Deer Hunter," or "Platoon," but it is worth watching.Altogether, "84C MoPic" still qualifies as a unique film that is too realistic for its own good. Surprisingly, given the potential of the premise, nobody has remade it with a big budget for special effects.

The acting is first rate, with Richard Brooks delivering the the goods as OD, the defacto leader of this group of recon soldiers.The first person perspective throughout the movie adds to the impact and lends a realism that conventional cinematography wouldn't have been able to pull off.The violence (it IS a war movie) is very realistic and disconcerting, which further involves the viewer in the movie. Moreso, this movie investigates the personal dynamics of the group of soldiers, set into the horror of the situation.In retrospect, the story and characters are really nothing you've not already seen. The stereotypical archetypes are represented, the redneck, the scared short-timer, etc, but while you watch this movie, the combination of a documentary style filming and first person perspective, combine to make this film feel new and refreshing. Granted "Blair Witch" had a similar feel, but this pre-dated that film by 10 years and pre-dated "The Last Broadcast" (from which the "Blair Witch" was nicked) by 9 years.If you can find a copy of this film. Settle in, crank it up and immerse yourself in it. It isn't the same as "the real thing": it isn't even close, nothing is. But it does let you glimpse into the world, without the fake slo-mo sequences, mood enhancing soundtrack, and trappings that separate you from "real life", and you can actually almost believe this IS a documentary.

A 1989 Vietnam War drama that does not work at all. With a story and dialog quite similar to the one found in Full Metal Jacket this movie seems meaningless. The acting is OK, but the lack of impressive acting is too great. Only minor scenes are exciting but mostly the movie is slow and uninteresting. Not recommended at all, not even if you are in to Vietnam movies. 2/10.