Casualties of War is a 1989 American war drama film directed by Brian De Palma, with a screenplay by David Rabe, based on the actual events of the incident on Hill 192 in 1966 during the Vietnam war, in which a soldier finds himself the outsider of his own squad when they unnecessarily kidnap a female villager.. The picture stars Michael J. Fox and Sean Penn. An article written by Daniel Lang for The New Yorker in 1969, and a subsequent book were the movie’s primary sources. In 1979 David Rabe mentioned the project to Brian De Palma, who was interested but was unable to raise the money to finance it. Some years later Rabe had written a script, and De Palma attached Michael J. Fox and Sean Penn as actors. They almost succeeded in getting the film financed at Paramount, but ultimately decided not to proceed when the budget went from $17 million to $20 million. De Palma then went on to make The Untouchables which was a big hit; Dawn Steel had liked the project at Paramount, and when she became head of production at Columbia Studios, Casualties of War was the first film she green-lit. De Palma invited Steven Spielberg to a private screening of the film, and after the screening ended, Spielberg said to Columbia Pictures executive Dawn Steel, “You’ll be thinking about this for a week.” Quentin Tarantino has hailed the film as “the greatest film about the Vietnam War.”
