ReviewVenice 2026: Mr. Nelson, Did You Kill People? is a haunting Vietnam war drama
The Vietnam war drama, in competition at the Venice Film Festival, explores trauma, redemption through a US Marine’s true-life journey
4/5 stars
“We were taught to treat Asians like they were less than human,” says Allen Nelson in Mr. Nelson, Did You Kill People?, a true-life drama about a former US Marine faced with a reckoning.
As the end credits tell us, this New Yorker was buried in Japan; in that country alone, he gave more than 1,200 talks about his horrifying experiences in the Vietnam war. How he reaches the point of being able to share his trauma is the film’s true focus.
It starts with a young Nelson (Mark Merphy) sleeping rough in an abandoned building after returning from Southeast Asia. A chance encounter leads an old school friend to implore him to speak to the children she teaches about his time overseas. Barely able to utter a word, he is left floored when a girl asks the very question that forms the film’s title.
Elegantly weaving elements of Nelson’s life before, during and after Vietnam, the film asks not if he killed, but why. This question certainly occupies his therapist, Dr Daniels (Geoffrey Rush), whose sessions with the older Nelson (Rodney Hicks) provide the backbone of the story.