''84C MoPic'' (also known as ''84 Charlie MoPic''; released in the Philippines as ''Platoon 2'') is a 1989 American independent
found footage war
War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...
drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has b ...
film written and directed by
Patrick Sheane Duncan
Patrick Sheane Duncan (born 1947) is an American writer, film producer and director.
A graduate of Grand Valley State University in Allendale Charter Township, Michigan, Duncan's career has been influenced by his Vietnam War experiences, which ...
.
Premise
The film is a mock documentary of a
Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol
A long-range reconnaissance patrol, or LRRP (pronounced "lurp"), is a small, well-armed reconnaissance team that patrols deep in enemy-held territory.Ankony, Robert C., ''Lurps: A Ranger's Diary of Tet, Khe Sanh, A Shau, and Quang Tri,'' revised ...
(LRRP) mission during the
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...
. The point of view is from a cameraman following a LRRP team on a five-day patrol deep in "Indian Country" (territory controlled by the
North Vietnam
North Vietnam, officially the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV; vi, Việt Nam Dân chủ Cộng hòa), was a socialist state supported by the Soviet Union (USSR) and the People's Republic of China (PRC) in Southeast Asia that existed f ...
ese). The cameraman is nicknamed "MoPic" by the team, because of his alphanumeric
military occupational specialty
A United States military occupation code, or a military occupational specialty code (MOS code), is a nine-character code used in the United States Army and United States Marine Corps to identify a specific job. In the United States Air Force, a sy ...
, 84C20,
Motion Picture Specialist. The supposedly routine mission, however, goes wrong and eventually turns into a struggle for survival. At first the squad seems in control. Their leader, the black sergeant “OD” detects booby traps, and the squad lays some booby traps of their own. They evade detection by an NVA patrol, and press deep behind enemy lines. One night, over the radio, they hear a whole army company being overrun by an NVA unit. They catch an NVA regiment in the open, and order an artillery strike, taking out much of the enemy.
Now that the NVA knows there are Americans nearby, they avoid any gunfire and make their escape in the bush as silently as possible. OD catches a 6 man NVA patrol on their tail, only 50 meters away. The squad takes them out, and carry a wounded NVA soldier with them. Their position is exposed by the noise, and a sniper takes out Pretty Boy. The sniper repeatedly shoots him in the limbs, torturing him, in an attempt to lure other squad members out into the open. Unable to rescue him, OD mercy kills him. He then demands the LT kill the NVA soldier with a knife to avoid any more noise. He sadistically makes the LT look at pictures of the NVA soldier’s family before LT kills the soldier. The squad continues their escape, but encounter VC troops which wound OD, and kill Cracker. With OD barely able to walk, Hammer, a less experienced squad member, takes point. He triggers a booby trap almost immediately, killing him. With half the squad killed, the survivors make their way to their evacuation point. After a final firefight, MOPIC is killed. OD, LT, and Easy escape in the chopper as the film ends.
Cast
* Jonathan Emerson as
LT
* Nicholas Cascone as Easy
* Jason Tomlins as Pretty Boy
* Christopher Burgard as Hammer
*
Glenn Morshower
Glenn Morshower is an American character actor. He is best known for playing Secret Service Agent Aaron Pierce in '' 24'' and Colonel (later General) Sharp Morshower in the ''Transformers'' film series. He has also appeared in many feature fil ...
as
Cracker
*
Richard Brooks
Richard Brooks (May 18, 1912 – March 11, 1992) was an American screenwriter, film director, novelist and film producer. Nominated for eight Academy Awards, Oscars in his career, he was best known for ''Blackboard Jungle'' (1955), ''Cat on a ...
as OD
*
Byron Thames
Byron Thames (born April 23, 1969) is an American television and film actor and musician.
Early life
Born in Jackson, Mississippi, his family moved shortly after his birth to New Orleans, Louisiana. He moved to Hollywood, California, with his m ...
as MoPic
Production and reception
''84C MoPic'' was filmed on a low budget in
Southern California
Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most populous urban a ...
. The film is one of the earlier examples of
found footage, a style famously implemented by ''
The Blair Witch Project
''The Blair Witch Project'' is a 1999 American supernatural horror film written, directed and edited by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez. It is a fictional story of three student filmmakers—Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams, and Josh ...
'' and ''
Paranormal Activity
Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Not ...
''. ''84 Charlie MoPic'' has an 83% "Fresh" rating on
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, based on 6 reviews.
Roger Ebert, awarding the film three stars out of four, wrote
The film received three nominations:
* 1989
Sundance Film Festival, Grand Jury Prize, Dramatic (Patrick Sheane Duncan)
* 1990
Independent Spirit Award
The Independent Spirit Awards (abbreviated Spirit Awards and originally known as the FINDIE or Friends of Independents Awards), founded in 1984, are awards dedicated to independent filmmakers. Winners were typically presented with acrylic glas ...
, Best First Feature, Patrick Sheane Duncan (Director);
Michael Nolin (Producer)
* 1990 Independent Spirit Award, Best Screenplay, Patrick Sheane Duncan
The film is listed among recommended Vietnam war films in a blog post on the
Council on Foreign Relations.
[Lindsay, James M]
"Ten More Vietnam War Movies,"
Council on Foreign Relations website (May 20, 2017).
References
External links
* {{IMDb title, id=0096744
AllMovieTrailer
1989 films
1980s war drama films
1989 crime drama films
American war drama films
Camcorder films
1980s English-language films
Found footage films
Vietnam War films
Vietnamese-language films
1980s American films