Combat Shock

Giovinazzo is a Vietnam veteran plagued by nightmares about his role in a My Lai-type massacre and about his subsequent years of imprisonment and torture at the hands of the North Vietnamese. When he returns home, he finds that conditions are even worse. He is unable to find a job; his wife turns into a grossly overweight, nagging virago; and his son is born horribly deformed, the result of Giovinazzo's exposure to Agent Orange. On the streets around his Staten Island home, he sees nothing but teenage prostitution, drug dealing, and misery. Finally he snaps. An intensely downbeat film, although one with some obviously serious (if unsuccessfully realized) pretension...