United States

• Impossible
• Prisoners

"Physical Assault" depicts what happens to nine young men trapped in the absurdities of war, a war none of them understands, a war where there are no winners, only losers. Kreuger, the film's central character is a former Infantry Lieutenant, who has been stripped of rank and sentenced to hard labour for refusing to carry out his part in the war. Now, because of his knowledge of the native language, he is offered a chance to redeem himself. His task - to aid in the interrogation of a youth suspected of being a gorilla [sic]. His response to the proposition is silence, that passes for acceptance and which inevitably involves him in a day and night of horror which leads to his destruction and the destruction of the innocent men around him. Every person isolated in the interrogation hut becomes a prisoner of the situation - the meaning of the title becomes clear. Besides the ambivalence of Kreuger, there is Sergent (sic) Thompson, who's (sic) solution to the problem is physical violence; Sergent (sic) Nguyen, the oriental interpreter, who struggles to keep the interrogation in his own hands and who is closer in understanding to the captive than to his allies; Mason, the base medical officer who's (sic) job it is to keep the suspect alive; Major Williams the base commander who is more concerned about his own career than the life of the young boy. Corporal Finley, the teenage medical orderly who's (sic) innocence is forever shattered; and finally Cowley a black man and a convict. like Kreuger in the shed by mistake, and who finally takes the action which brings this film its brutal and tragic conclusion.