TV REVIEWS : ‘Last P.O.W.’: A Traitor or Survivor?

A POW Vietnam War story that nobody wanted to touch and, once produced, was then closeted by a network uncertain what to do with it, finally reaches the home screen tonight, three years after it was made.

Starring Ralph Macchio in the demanding title role, “The Last P.O.W.? The Bobby Garwood Story” (on Channel 7, 9 p.m.) is the gripping drama of the only U.S. serviceman to be court-martialed and convicted for collaborating with the Viet Cong.

No attempt is made at a docudrama kind of objectivity. Nothing so safe as that. Crucially, and the source of the movie’s controversy, the production is told from the reviled POW’s point of view. Survivor, yes; conventional hero, definitely not.

It’s a movie, as much as the best of the Vietnam War movies, in which all the moral ambiguities of the war come together.

It’s no wonder ABC canceled the first scheduled broadcast in January, 1991--the start of the Gulf War. Actually, the script, initially deemed unmarketable, had been rejected by many studios.

As if a sympathetic POW who reports to the enemy weren’t enough, the movie also reawakens the MIA debate, concluding with Garwood’s assertion at a rally that he had seen many MIAs in North Vietnam “who I believe are still there.”

Macchio impressively ages from an ambushed 19-year-old Marine jeep driver who survives 14 years in prison camps to a haunted, 32-year returnee who returns into the arms of accusatory military brass.

Fellow prisoners who shared the torture of brutal Vietnamese commanders (vividly played by Le Tuan and Joseph Hieu) turn prosecution witnesses and charge him with dealing with the enemy.

We watch Garwood change from a model POW who tries to escape and refuses to give out more than his rank, name and serial number to a guy who learns enough Vietnamese to converse with the enemy. Soon he’s wearing their black uniform, serving as interpreter at enforced propaganda lectures and encouraging other prisoners to do what it takes to survive.

In fact, his first POW friend is a U.S. captain played by Martin Sheen who orders Garwood to endure by obeying prison camp rules and by mastering “their language.” Garwood’s actions are seen not as traitorous but as common sense, practical means to survival.

Garwood is no different, his government-appointed shrink (Henry Beckman) reminds the court, than other POWs who also cooperated with the Viet Cong. The court-martial absorbs only the last 10 minutes of the 95-minute movie, but under Georg Stanford Brown’s brisk direction, the trial telegraphs with metallic efficiency what was really the Vietnam War’s final, sour note.

In a short cameo by the same man (John Pielmeier) who wrote the compelling teleplay, Garwood’s brusque, civilian defense attorney tells his client “we’re going to say you are mentally ill,” pleading a post-traumatic distress syndrome stemming from torture and isolation. Macchio’s frozen face melts into a subtle twitch of resignation.

The ex-POW becomes a national headline and the Pentagon’s exploitable symbol: the first serviceman to be released by Hanoi since 566 American prisoners had been returned in 1973 and a man now facing life in the stockade with some veterans calling for him to be shot.

The court-martial was 12 years ago. The world forgets about Bobby Garwood. Now his shadow is cast once again. Turncoat or victim? The movie blurs distinctions of defector and patriot, making uneasy the certainties of old wars. What more can we ask from a war movie?