I can't recall a dramatic feature telling the story of Australian and New Zealand troops in the Vietnam War, and this is one of the main attractions of Danger Close: The Battle of Long Tan.
The other is the realistic re-enactments of this horrific battle, in which you can see
and hear the bullets flying past the soldiers.
Based on a true story, director Kriv Stenders (Red Dog) puts faces to some of the names of just over one hundred inexperienced young Kiwi and Aussie soldiers who held off an advance from more than 2500 Northern Vietnamese soldiers in the battle of Long Tan in 1966.
The set-up introduces us to a variety of characters, including experienced, possible PTSD-suffering professional soldier Major Harry Smith (Travis Fimmel), who isn't impressed he's babysitting a bunch of conscripts. Overnight their camp is attacked and in the morning Smith takes his company out to search for the enemy.
After a lengthy introduction to a few more characters, we spend the second half of the film trapped with Smith and his company in a rubber plantation, overrun and exposed in what feels like an impossible situation.
