Well I went to go see Amigo on 8/24. In So Cal, Orange County it was playing in Cerritos on limited engagement. My wife who is a Filipina and I went to see it around 4:00pm. Besides us there was one other Filipino couple who walked out of the theater half way thru the movie. I'm not sure why unless they were offended by many of the American racist remarks used toward Filipinos in the movie or they just thought it was a bad movie...I don't know. Being on limited engagement the distributors will only place the movie in areas where they think the public will watch. There are alot of Filipinos in and around Cerritos.

It's a long movie. The focus is less on battle and more about the American / Filipino relationship at the time and personal relationships, the few Spaniards in the movie were portrayed as either arrogant or two-faced which might be correct for the time period. There a number of battle scenes but nothing over the top, get your blood going type stuff. It tries to convey the quagmire the Americans had got themselves into and how many soldiers thought they were going to fight Spaniards rather than the Indios (Filipino natives) and the resentment they had. It also delved into the Filipino resentment. America was depicted as the bad guy early on but the movie tried to make the point of how so many people, both American and Filipino were just caught in the middle and forced to take a side despite any personal feelings. But I think the main premise of the movie was that overall the average Filipino was screwed. Obey the Americans and get killed by the Insurrectos or side with the Insurrectos and get killed by the Americans. In the end the Americans won out. It was that simple.......which might be the problem with the movie.

It's a good movie but maybe too simplistic for a very complicated political/colonial war. Despite this I was pleased that a decent movie was made about a subject that is never talked about or ever taught in American schools. I give the movie a "B" for a first effort. The uniforms and gear looked pretty good but I'm not up on the specific details of Spanish American war uniforms and gear to be able to judge. All I can say is that the US soldiers looked convincing.

As for the Krags.....man I was cringing and I give the movie a big fat "F" for Firearms. I realize that Krags are few and far between to be able to supply even a squad of soldiers for a movie but I know perfectly well that a mold can be made from an original rifle and resin replicas can be used for non firing scenes and background shots while a few originals can be used for close up shots. Throughout the movie I was trying to figure out what they were using for Krags because the rifles could fire but looked completely wrong. After one scene where a soldier was mounting a bayonet I could tell that it was a bayonet for a Garand/Springfield. I then came to the conclusion that they had placed Springfield barreled receivers in dummy stocks that were made up to appear as Krag stocks with dummy magazine doors and all. The overall impression was a rather shorter and chubby looking Krag that appeared very clumsy looking. I really didn't want to be one of those guys who makes comments and points out all the problems in a war movie but I was on the Krag part. I kept commenting to my wife..."Those Rifles suck"..."That's not a Krag bayonet...oh.. well that bayonet looked right on that close up but that other scene was all wrong!" I believe she was mildly annoyed so I shut up. You never saw a single soldier re-load...because they couldn't with those phony magazine doors which looked all wrong as well.

So if you want to see Krags in action, don't see this movie but if you can get past that aspect it's pretty good.