Hamburger Hill researching the Battle of Hamburger Hill. Irvin, an English-born filmmaker, worked on several documentaries in Vietnam in 1969. Vincent Canby of "The New York Times" called "Hamburger Hill" a "well-made Vietnam War film that narrows its attention to the men of a single platoon in a specific operation." In differentiating the film from "Platoon", he noted the film "refuses to put its characters and events into any larger frame. It could have been made a week after the conclusion of the operation it recalls, which is both its strength and weakness, depending on how you look at it." Hal Hinson
Battle of Hamburger Hill experienced only light contact on the first day, but documents captured by 3/187th indicated that the PAVN 29th Regiment, nicknamed the "Pride of Ho Chi Minh" and a veteran of the 1968 Battle of Hue, was somewhere in the valley. Past experience in many of the larger encounters with PAVN indicated they would resist violently for a short time and then withdraw before the Americans brought overwhelming firepower to bear against them. Prolonged combat, such as at Dak To and Ia Drang, had been relatively rare. Honeycutt anticipated his battalion had sufficient capability to carry out a reconnaissance on Hill