Kalahane
Synopsis
A man is called by the military to defend himself against long-ago charges of criminal misconduct in this made-for-cable drama based on a novel by Nelson DeMille. Ben Tyson (Don Johnson) has done well for himself 30 years after his tour of duty in Vietnam -- he's a successful businessman and happily married to a beautiful woman, Marcy (Sharon Lawrence).
But Tyson's contented life is shattered when a book is published accusing him of being responsible for a bloody ambush in a field hospital that took the lives of a number of Vietnamese civilians. Tyson is recalled to duty by the army to answer these charges in a court martial. As his professional and personal lives begin to buckle under the strain, Tyson must defend his actions, as well as his responsibilities to his comrades and himself, to prosecutor Major Karen Harper (Jeanne Tripplehorn).
The Movie
A decent plot with a twist and generally well-acted, but it does have a major fault in its premise. Tyson covers up an atrocity to protect his men and does so basically because he believes they are good men who one day, in war, went mad. That appears to be sufficient justification to allow them to escape punishment.
The filmmakers are saying that the evil deeds of war are excusable and the lives of the perpetrators are worth more than the dozens of unarmed civilians they killed. In reality, Tyson's loyalties are at best misplaced if not subconsciously self-serving. The title is a bad joke, since there is nothing honourable in this film.