In theaters

WE WERE SOLDIERS, written and directed by Randall Wallace, 138 minutes, rated R.

At this point in his career, it’s safe to assume that for Mel Gibson, love is a battlefield.

Teaming again with Randall Wallace, his writer on the Academy Award-winning “Braveheart,” the actor leaves the bloody battlefields of 13th century Scotland to command the troops in the United States’ first protracted battle with the North Vietnamese in 1965.

It’s a performance that comes two years after “The Patriot,” which found Gibson firing at the British in one of 2000’s better films. “We Were Soldiers” is based on the best-selling book by Lt. Gen. Harold Moore and journalist Joseph Galloway. If it proves anything in the context of Gibson’s career, it’s that the actor has the right mix of guts and glory to be effective in a war movie.

As Moore, Gibson is a happily married father of five who’s been chosen to lead the 1st Battalion of the 7th Cavalry – the same regiment as Custer – into the Ia Drang Valley. But without proper preparation or intelligence, he and his 400 men quickly are overwhelmed and outnumbered by thousands of enemy troops.

Mirroring “Black Hawk Down,” “Soldiers'” tone darkens as each man realizes that few will come away with their lives.

After a heavy-handed opening that bursts with sentiment – in an early scene, Moore kneels and prays with his children, gently explaining to his youngest daughter what war is and why it exists, and then making passionate love to his wife, Julie (Madeleine Stowe) – “We Were Soldiers” digs in to become an extremely graphic war movie that plunges audiences deep into the hell of the battlefield while showing both sides of the fight.

With skill and finesse, Wallace makes audiences feel every bullet and every bomb as it tears into every body. His battle scenes are superbly handled, so hyper-realistic and edgy that blood literally spatters on the camera lens in two separate scenes.

What’s different about “We Were Soldiers” is that it might be the first Vietnam war movie that feels like a World War II movie. Unlike “Apocalypse Now” and “Full Metal Jacket,” for instance, there is no politicizing here, no angst, just soldiers standing bravely before the enemy in the face of great odds.

As one soldier dies, he notes how happy he is to die for his country. As another soldier passes, he looks to be at great peace. This is a major shift in popular attitude, and whether it comes because the film comes from Wallace, who also wrote “Pearl Harbor,” or because Hollywood feels we’re now far enough removed from the Vietnam War to see it differently, is unclear. What is clear is this: “We Were Soldiers” is worth a look.

Grade: A-

On video and DVD

SEXY BEAST, directed by Jonathan Glazer, written by Louis Mellis and David Scinto, 91 minutes, rated R.

The opening of Jonathan Glazer’s “Sexy Beast” is a stunner. In it, the camera hovers above Gal Dove (Ray Winstone), a doughy, 40-something English crook lying flat on his back in the heat of a blistering sun.

In spite of his burnt skin and unflatteringly tight Speedo, everything about Dove seems white-trash cool – right down to his chunky gold necklace, cheap silver rings and badly tipped hair.

But when a boulder steamrolls down the hill behind Dove’s swanky Spanish villa and becomes airborne, whizzing past his head before slamming into the bottom of his heart-tiled pool, it seems as if even nature knows that Dove’s cool is about to be tested in a deadly series of events.

With style and a pounding industrial score, Glazer swings the meat of his movie around Dove’s relationship with Don Logan (Ben Kingsley), a psychopathic mobster from London who wants to pull Dove out of retirement for one last job.

But Dove wants none of it. Neither does his former porn-star wife, Deedee (Amanda Redman), or their drinking friends, Aitch (Cavan Kendall) and Jackie (Julianne White), who are so oiled and leathery, they might as well be moving armoires.

Everyone involved shares a past with Logan, whose dirty mouth and ugly mean streak are easy to fear and loathe. The result? Absolute fireworks – especially when Logan starts demanding that Dove join him on a frightfully well-conceived bank heist with the debonair criminal Teddy Bass (Ian McShane).

With an Academy Award-nominated performance by Kingsley, “Sexy Beast” is a good film that hasn’t traveled well; sometimes it’s impossible to decipher the strong cockney accents and, worse, if you don’t understand the local slang, it’s clear you’re missing chunks of the film.

But much like “The Limey” and “Croupier,” there’s enough here to intoxicate an American audience, particularly fans of Harold Pinter and David Mamet, who will respond to the film’s stagy scenes, icy chill and endless reams of doubletalk.

Grade: B+

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays and Fridays in Style, occasionally on Fridays on “E! Entertainment’s” “E! News Daily,” Tuesdays on “NEWS CENTER at 5” and Thursdays on “NEWS CENTER at 5:30” on WLBZ-2 and WCSH-6. He can be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.

The Video/DVD Corner

Renting a video or a DVD? NEWS film critic Christopher Smith can help. Below are his grades of recent releases in video stores.

A.I. ? B-

The Last Castle ? C-

Sexy Beast ? B+

Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back ? F

The Musketeer ? D-

The Taste of Others ? A-

Don’t Say a Word ? C-

Hardball ? C+

O ? B+

Hearts in Atlantis ? B

Life Without Dick ? D

Captain Corelli’s Mandolin ? D

Ghost World ? A

Lost & Delirious ? C-

Atlantis: The Lost Empire ? C

The Curse of the Jade Scorpion ? B-

Lisa Picard is “Famous” ? B

Kiss of the Dragon ? B-

Rock Star ? B

American Pie 2 ? C+

Bubble Boy ? F

Glitter ? D

Sound and Fury ? A

Jeepers Creepers ? D

The Fast and the Furious ? B

The Glass House ? C

Greenfingers ? B-

What’s the Worse that Could Happen ? D

The Center of the World ? C

Evolution ? D-

Two Can Play That Game ? C+

Moulin Rouge ? A-

The Princess Diaries ? C+

Scary Movie 2 ? D

Hedwig and the Angry Inch ? A

Jurassic Park III ? B-

Rush Hour 2 ? D

The Score ? B

American Outlaws ? F

Ghost of Mars ? C-

Pearl Harbor ? D

Summer Catch ? C-

Bread and Roses ? A-

Divided We Fall ? A

Made ? B

Pootie Tang ? D+

Osmosis Jones ? C-