Burt Lancaster, in one of the finest performances of his career, stars as Asa Barker, a savvy U.S. major who reluctantly obeys an order to send a detachment of South Vietnamese troops and American advisors to a former French outpost that has been peaceful for years. Barker fears this action will draw the Viet Cong into the area – and he's right. The ill-advised order and its effect on Barker and his men provide the battle-ravaged background in this gripping story that's both an intimate portrayal of a few men at war and a microcosm of the American experience in Vietnam. The problems of myopic judgement in the high command and plummeting morale in the field seen in 1964 would occur again in the disastrous years that followed. Compelling and grimly real, no film embodies the moral and military dilemma of the U.S. presence in Vietnam better than "Go Tell the Spartans." Craig Wasson, Jonathan Goldsmith, Joe Unger, Dennis Howard, David Clennon and Dolph Sweet also star.

Poster Comment:

10-2 ++