Courage Under Fire VHS

"Courage Under Fire" on VHS, sealed in original 20th Century Fox shrink wrap. The 1996 release, directed by Edward Zwick, stars Denzel Washington as a Gulf War officer investigating the circumstances around a female medevac pilot's Medal of Honor nomination, played by Meg Ryan in a role that broke against every expectation the audience carried in. This copy has never been opened, never been played, and the shrink seal shows no splits or bubbling at the spine.

The film arrived in theaters the summer of 1996, a year when Fox was leaning into prestige military drama after the post-Gulf War cultural appetite had been building for half a decade. Zwick had come off "Legends of the Fall" in 1994 and was working in a register that took the war film seriously as a moral puzzle, not a spectacle. Washington was in one of his most consistent stretches, having just delivered "Devil in a Blue Dress" in 1995. Ryan's performance drew real notices, a performance that cut against her romantic comedy typecasting so hard that critics couldn't stop noting it. The Siskel and Ebert two-thumbs-up blurb is printed on the front sleeve, which tells you something about where this film sat in the conversation that summer. Lou Diamond Phillips and Matt Damon round out the cast, Damon in a pre-"Good Will Hunting" supporting slot that collectors of his early-career work tend to track.

The shrink wrap on this copy is intact at the spine seam and both corners, with no peeling or lift at the label edge. The sleeve art is clean, no sun-fade on the Denzel/Meg Ryan front image, and the Fox logo block at the lower right reads with full contrast. This is the standard retail clamshell configuration, not the rental edition, so the sleeve has no sticker residue or stamped return markings. The tape window on the clamshell should show the ribbon sitting flat and tight with no slack when you hold it up to light.

OWNER VERIFY: Confirm the shrink seal seam runs unbroken at the spine before grading as factory sealed.