Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
Vietnam War, 1966. Australia and New Zealand send troops to support the United States and South Vietnamese in their fight against the communist North. Soldiers are very young men, recruits and volunteers who have never been involved in a combat. On August 18th, members of Delta Company will face the true horror of a ruthless battle among the trees of a rubber plantation called Long Tân. They are barely a hundred. The enemy is a human wave ready to destroy them.
Danger Close is a competent and respectful retelling of the Battle of Long Tan, a largely overlooked engagement in the Vietnam War. The plot follows a straightforward survival narrative — outnumbered troops holding out under fire — which is executed solidly but without great dramatic complexity. Acting is serviceable across the ensemble, with no standout performances but no major weak links either. Cinematography captures the tension and chaos of the rubber plantation setting with reasonable skill, though it doesn't reach the visual artistry of the genre's best entries. Novelty is modest: the Australian/ANZAC perspective on Vietnam gives it a distinctive angle not often seen in Western cinema, but the battle-movie structure itself is conventional. The ending, while emotionally resonant given the true story, is handled in a fairly by-the-numbers manner without the cathartic impact the material could have generated.