Purple Hearts

Directed by Sidney J. Furie, Purple Hearts chronicles the exploits of a military surgeon (Ken Wahl’s Don Jardian) and nurse (Cheryl Ladd’s Deborah Solomon) during the Vietnam war. Filmmaker Furie, working from a script written with Rick Natkin, delivers an epic yet frustratingly uninvolving drama that’s only able to capture the viewer’s attention and interest on a fleeting basis, and it’s clear, ultimately, that the biggest impediment to Purple Hearts‘ success are the less-than-charismatic efforts of its two stars – with both Wahl and Ladd delivering competent but entirely bland work that perpetually exacerbates the picture’s myriad of deficiencies. It’s clear, then, that the movie’s almost-tolerable atmosphere is due primarily to Furie’s handling of certain admittedly engaging sequences, as the director does an effective job of infusing the overlong proceedings with a handful of stirring, compelling war-themed set pieces. (There is, for example, an impressively electrifying interlude in which Jardian and another soldier find themselves caught behind enemy lines.) And although the film concludes on an undeniably satisfying note, at least, Purple Hearts is, for the most part, a hopelessly forgettable endeavor that is rarely, if ever, as engrossing as Furie has surely intended.

** out of ****