Based primarily on an article written by Daniel Lang for The New Yorker about Hill 192 in Vietnam, which was later published as a book, this was directed by Brian De Palma and written by David Rabe. It was filmed in Thailand, including one scene shot on the same bridge as the one in The Bridge on the River Kwai.

Max Eriksson (Michael J. Fox) is home after Vietnam and remembers incidents throughout the film. There was the time that Sergeant Tony Meserve (Sean Penn) saved his life after he fell into a tunnel. The death of “Brownie” Brown (Erik King) and how that affected Meserve. And the time that Meserve, Corporal Thomas E. Clark (Don Patrick Harvey), Private First Class Antonio Diaz (John Leguizamo) and Private First Class Herbert Hatcher (John C. Reilly) kidnap a Vietnamese girl, Tran Thi Oanh (Thuy Thu Le), and repeatedly assault her while Eriksson is forced to stand watch. He attempts to free her but by the end, each man shoots her multiple times and throws her body off a bridge.

Eriksson realizes from Lieutenant Reilly (Ving Rhames) and Captain Hill (Dale Dye) that no one cares what the men did. But after meeting with a chaplain, an investigation happens with Meserve getting 10 years hard labor and a dishonorable discharge, Clark life in prison, and Hatcher and Diaz 15 and 8 years of hard labor. as Eriksoon wakes on a train from his dreams, he sees a young woman who looks exactly like Tran. She forgets his scarf and he runs after her. She smiles and thanks him as he gets some closure.

Quentin Tarantino told Samuel Blumenfeld, co-author of Brian De Palma: Conversations with Samuel Blumenfeld and Laurent Vachaud, how important this movie was to him: “It’s the greatest film about the Vietnam War. Apocalypse Now would be classified in another category as Coppola’s film goes beyond the war. De Palma adapts a very small news article, which must have occurred on several occasions in Vietnam or elsewhere. Elia Kazan had also been inspired by it for The Visitors. He had made an intimate film. De Palma treats that same news item in the epic, operatic style that was his signature since Obsession and Blow Out. Soldiers capture a young Vietnamese girl. Before her murder, every member of the unit, with the exception of one of them, tortures and rapes her. The cowardice associated with the forced courage of the character played by Michael J. Fox — who does not participate in the rape and denounces his friends — is very moving. Casualties of War presents the most traumatizing rape sequence in the history of cinema. It’s also one of the best performances from Sean Penn, terrifying as the sergeant squad leader.”