`RETURN WITH HONOR' INSPIRING.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Critic

During the Vietnam War, 462 U.S. airmen were shot down over North Vietnam and held as prisoners of war. They were isolated, tortured and, sometimes, paraded through the streets of Hanoi as crowds jeered and pelted them with debris. Throughout their years of captivity, these men established a motto: Return With Honor. In other words, don't do anything that you would remember with shame once you returned home to the States.

The riveting new documentary ``Return With Honor'' shows those words in action through intimate interviews with many of the pilots along with never-before-seen footage obtained from Vietnamese film archives. The result is a powerful movie that testifies to the courage of these men as well as the power of the human spirit to endure inconceivable hardships.

The film was written, directed and produced by Freida Lee Mock and Terry Sanders, the team that made the Oscar-winning feature ``Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision,'' which profiled the designer of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Tom Hanks adds his name as a ``presenter,'' a generous act to help spread the word about this remarkable movie.

``Return With Honor'' came about after U.S. Air Force Academy graduates collected 39 bound volumes of oral history from those who had been POWs in Vietnam. Realizing they had the makings of a great documentary, the graduates approached the filmmakers with the idea of recounting a little-known, but important, slice of American history.

The stories - told entirely through interviews with the men and the wives they left behind - are moving, absorbing and nothing short of heroic. The film moves chronologically: The pilots recall the early days of the war, when they were cocky and anxious to see some action before the fighting ended. We see footage of planes corkscrewing toward the earth and then hear the stories of men taken prisoner and forced to march through one village after another, where they were stoned and spat upon by the North Vietnamese.

Eventually, many of them wound up at the Hoa Lo Prison (nicknamed the ``Hanoi Hilton''), an old jail built by French colonialists where, in the words of Air Force Lt. Ron Bliss, ``you could hear the screams of about 50 years. It was a hard place.''

The former POWs recount the torture and difficult times (some spent as many as eight years in jail), but also the brotherhood that developed among the men. The prisoners developed a code of communicating through tapping on the stone walls. Capt. George McKnight recalls two years of solitary confinement during which he intimately conversed, through tapping, with a man whose face he had never seen.

The filmmakers mix in modern footage they shot in Hanoi with the interviews and archival material supplied by the Ministry of Culture and Information in Vietnam. The variety of sources gives ``Return With Honor'' a compelling intricacy, with the unearthed films from Vietnam being particularly revealing.

Watching Navy commander Jeremiah Denton confront a North Vietnamese camera crew by blinking the word ``torture'' in Morse code (in case he broke and made a ``confession'') is just one of many powerful episodes shown during the movie.

``Return With Honor'' draws inspiration from these men's stories, and well it should. Although their experience as POWs continues to hamper some of them physically (and others no doubt psychologically), most have moved on and recall the days there with military stoicism, gallows humor and a small amount of pride.

Two of the men have enjoyed successful political careers (John McCain is a U.S. senator and Republican presidential candidate; Sam Johnson is a congressman from Texas); another, Pete Peterson, is the current ambassador to Vietnam, living a mere three blocks from where he was held for 6-1/2 years.

As one of the pilots reflects: ``Few people are called upon to use everything they have.'' These men were called upon and not found lacking. Their story is one that all Americans should know.

THE FACTS

The film: ``Return With Honor'' (unrated; adult content).

Behind the scenes: Directed by Freida Lee Mock and Terry Sanders. Written by Mock, Sanders and Christine Z. Wiser. Presented by Tom Hanks. Released by Ocean Releasing.

Running time: One hour, 42 minutes.

Playing: AMC Century 14 in Century City.

Our rating: Four stars.

CAPTION(S):

Photo

Photo: Air Force Lt. Ron Bliss and fellow POWs lived by the motto ``Return With Honor'' while in captivity during the Vietnam War.