Brothers in Arms

An excellent companion piece to George Butler's Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry, another recent (if more general) documentary about John Kerry's Vietnam chapter, Brothers in Arms focuses on Kerry's Swift Boat duty and several of the men who served under him. Unlike Butler's film, which reveals Kerry through archival footage, Paul Alexander's film includes fresh interviews with Kerry along with former crewmates David Alston, Mike Medeiros, Del Sandusky, and Gene Thorson, whose recollections offer a detailed and often terrifying portrait of life, death, and the politics of terror on the Mekong Delta. Viewers will learn that Swift Boat teams were often sitting ducks and that crews routinely destroyed villages and civilian food supplies to deny access to the Vietcong. Revisiting Kerry's heroism and the wounds he suffered in action (the film is admiring of the future senator and presidential candidate, but not nakedly partisan), Brothers in Arms also looks beyond Vietnam into the later, often difficult years of Alston, Medeiros, and the rest. Highly recommended. [Note: DVD extras include a statement by director Paul Alexander, photos, and a trailer gallery. Bottom line: a small extras package for a solid documentary.] (T. Keogh)