Off Limits

Willem Dafoe and Gregory Hines are a pair of CID men in Saigon. Their attempt to arrest a deserter is interrupted when they're assigned to investigate the murder of a sex worker by an American officer. 

As these things often do, it grows more complicated when it becomes apparent that not only is this not the first of these. A novice (Amanda Pays) in a convent knew each of the victims had a child from an American GI. The militaries already closed down the investigation once before. The Marine initially assigned to investigate decided he was safer on the front lines. Their first witness (played by Keith David) gets blown up, along with the guy assigned to guard him (played by David Alan Grier, was not expecting to see him). Dafoe gets interested in the novice. Scott Glenn pops up as a well-regarded Army colonel (and kind of nuts, got a bit of the Colonel Kurtz in him) who is also a suspect.

Most of the movie is the DaFoe and Hines trying to navigate all the various roadblocks. As you might guess, not everyone in Vietnam is excited to help members of the US military. Not that they help themselves any. They spend a lot of time chasing people, using racial slurs to people's faces, and antagonizing the Vietnamese military police. The draw their handguns at a drop of a hat, and Hinds' go-to threat to unhelpful suspects is to rip their nuts off.

Of the two, I think Hines' character is a little more focused on just trying to make it home alive, which might explain his attitude. He doesn't want to get killed because he was caught unprepared to fight back. Dafoe is, well, Dafoe. He's not as over-the-top as in some other roles, but there's still a fair amount of that intensity he typically brings to roles. But there's also a certain awkwardness, especially when he interacts with the novice. There's one bit where she brings them to speak with the sister of a witness. The sister works in a strip club, and Dafoe is very embarrassed to be sitting there with a couple of nuns, while they're entirely unaffected.

As a mystery goes, it's not that great. I figured out the killer just based on the role the character played in the film. But it's interesting to watch a movie about the U.S. presence in Vietnam that isn't about the fights in the jungles.