Sunday, August 21, 2005
Friday Movie Review (late)
Just saw The Great Raid and it was great. So moving. I didn't just cry at the end, I wept. It was hard to get it together by the time the lights came on. And it's not that sad--those were tears of pride. Guys who really like movies know the director's other work. He's John Dahl who did neo-noirish Red Rocks West, The Last Seduction and Rounders, each of which is good. The theatre wasn't very crowded (and most of the guys there looked like they could have been in the Philippines in 1945) so I don't think the box office is going gang-busters and the reviews have been mixed (more on that later). That doesn't matter--you should go see this movie soon (even though it's got Benjamin Bratt in it).
It's pretty long, 2 hours 12 minutes, but it only drags where it should, in setting up the raid and in the no-contact love affair. Connie Nielson, who was the 'love interest' in Gladiator, plays a very savvy and brave nurse who stays in order to help the POWs with smuggled drugs. Joseph Fiennes plays the American 'leader' in the Camp which is simultaneously slated for a Japanese style final solution (they skip the gassing part and proceed directly to burning the bodies without first killing them) and a rescue mission by well prepared but untested Rangers. Fiennes looks much too beefy to be dying of malaria. Special praise belongs to Cesar Montano for his portrayal of Filipino guerilla Captain Pajota. He managed, at least for me, to capture a quiet resignation to second class status all the while showing first class tactical skill and courage. The two Japanese secret police villains are superb--urbane, confident, polite and murderous. I've seen neither of them before. It also has Dale Dye as Lt. General Kreuger (whoever that was) and as the film's 'technical advisor'. Apparently there is a law out there that all American war movies must have Dale Dye in them.
In short, this is a movie where the heavily outnumbered good guys kick ass and take names and the bad guys die. What else do you want in a summer flick?
Not everyone has liked it, like this Stephen Holden, a movie reviewer at the New York Times. He said the movie was
a tedious World War II epic that slogs across the screen like a forced march in quicksand...it illustrates a depressing similarity between reckless war-mongering and grandiose moviemaking. Historical films with vainglorious ambitions, like ill-fated imperial ventures, often overlook the human factor, a miscalculation that usually results in a rout.
I have absolutely no idea what he's talking about. What "reckless war-mongering"? What "vainglorious ambition"? What "ill-fated imperial ventures"? Is he comparing this movie, set in 1945, to the current situation in Iraq? Let's take these questions in order.
Showing a historically accurate account of awell fought, little battle in a big war is not "war-mongering," what ever that means, with or without a mens rea. Accuracy in what the movie shows isn't the same as celebrating war. The Japanese had vainglorious ambition to try to conquer the area around them but the Rangers out to save the lives of their fellow servicemen had a purer motive and far from being big-headed and boastful (which is what vainglorious means) the Americans were the very models of self-effacing competence. Likewise, the Japanese invasions of the nations and islands around their home islands were indeed imperial ventures which I'm led to believe led to a somewhat bad end for Japan. But something tells me that movie critic Holden was not applying this term to the Japanese. Whom, exactly, he was referring to is necessarily a guess because he's just not very good a writer. Finally, since the three terms Holden throws about can't apply to the Americans in the movie and don't make any sense if applied to the Japanese, there has to be a broader sense he is using them for, like commenting on current war situations. But Iraq has nothing to do with the fight against Imperial Japan except that our boys are out there risking life and limb mainly for the benefit of others, just like we did in WWII.
I know I'm getting sidetracked here but the NYT review gets worse. Then Holden trots out this gem:
Its scenes of torture and murder also unapologetically revive the uncomfortable stereotype of the Japanese soldier as a sadistic, slant-eyed fiend.
I'm stealing the below quoted comment about this sentence from Small Dead Animals but I couldn't have said it better if I had taken weeks to write this.
If you read the Holden quote again, you'll see a favorite rhetorical trick of the left (or, as the Italians say it, 'la sinestra'). Look at the phrase "the stereotype of the Japanese soldier as a sadistic, slant-eyed fiend".
First, why 'slant-eyed'? Is someone claiming that the soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army DIDN'T actually have epicanthal folds? Is someone claiming that these folds somehow caused or excused certain behaviors? Would the actions depicted be somehow less sadistic or fiendish if the perpetrators had, say, both eyes on the same side of their heads like a flounder?
No. Eyes (in quantities up to but not exceeding two and uniformly distributed) are expected on fiends and friends alike. I'll go out on a limb here and say that's pretty much a norm that we're all comfortable with. Same for the eyelids. So why bring it up?
Precisely because it IS an ethnic slur, and one of the worst sort possible in 21st century American culture -- it's a slur based on a visible ethnic difference. White Americans have a massive guilt complex when it comes to 'visible' ethnicity, and any phrase that reminds them of that complex is therefore extremely uncomfortable. We've been trained for four decades to automatically reject any phrase or concept that implies that a visual ethnic difference is an indicator of character or ability.
Stupid as it sounds, some people may be willing to call a sadistic fiend a sadistic fiend, but not if it involves throwing in an ethnic slur. I'm not saying this is a Bad Thing, I just resent it's being used gratuitously to manipulate opinion.
Now, if Holden had simply referred to "the stereotype of the Japanese soldier as a sadistic fiend", most people would have recognized the other trick he used -- using the word 'stereotype' as a synonym for 'reputation'. Most of us Boomers were trained starting in high school that "stereotypes are Bad", and ethnic stereotypes are the worst; we automatically reject anything that perpetuates harmful ethnic stereotypes, except, of course, for stereotyping all Americans of Italian descent as being murdering, sadistic, racist Mafia thugs -- which is nothing more than good TV.
So, there you have it, the phrase "the reputation of the Japanese soldier as a sadistic fiend", which would have conjured up an indisputable historic fact, is replaced by a phrase that somehow makes the reader feel that any suspicion about the behavior of the Japanese soldier during WWII must be the result of western (American) racism.
Amazing what a few well-placed words can do, isn't it?
See also Scott Johnson's thoughtful post on the subject at Powerline
OK enough about poorly educated movie critics' cryptic or stupid comments about the movie. Now to the gun stuff. They pick out ten guys to shoot for an attempted escape (you saw it coming) and the officer has a Nambu 14th year pistol (which looks like a copy of a Luger made by a guy who's legally blind) and he walks behind each of the kneeling Americans and puts a bullet through their brain stem and out the throat. The POWs fall down like sacks of potatoes. But the Nambu only holds 8 in the clip and the officer stops after number 6 to put in a new clip for the last 4. (This scene is a great improvement over the Nazi head shots with an eight shot P-38 in the hard as a diamond movie The Grey Zone where the SS guard never reloads). The Japanese guard in our movie had to crank back the bolt to seat another round after he put in a new clip, because he did not shoot out the entire clip (which would have held the bolt open). Even though the Nambu round (8mm) is necked down, it's not as powerful as the Luger's round, 9mm parabellum, but up close that doesn't seem to matter.
I've always wondered why anyone would put a bayonet on a full auto weapon like the the Type 99 light machine gun the murderous Major Nagai has, but he uses it against the top (1st sergeant) and almost gets him except he failed to secure properly his bulbous Nambu holster.
Almost all our guys have M-1 Garands, except for Bratt's character, Lt. Col. Mucci, who has a Springfield 1903 (and unlike the religious sniper in Saving Private Ryan who can crank off 7 or 8 rounds left handed (from a gun which holds only 5) without reloading, Bratt, over iron sites, knocks down 5 Japanese soldiers slogging through a river. Then he's done.
The movie is based on Ghost Soldiers by Hampton Sides and the The Great Raid on Cabanatuan by William Breuer, and I'm told both are great reads.
It's pretty long, 2 hours 12 minutes, but it only drags where it should, in setting up the raid and in the no-contact love affair. Connie Nielson, who was the 'love interest' in Gladiator, plays a very savvy and brave nurse who stays in order to help the POWs with smuggled drugs. Joseph Fiennes plays the American 'leader' in the Camp which is simultaneously slated for a Japanese style final solution (they skip the gassing part and proceed directly to burning the bodies without first killing them) and a rescue mission by well prepared but untested Rangers. Fiennes looks much too beefy to be dying of malaria. Special praise belongs to Cesar Montano for his portrayal of Filipino guerilla Captain Pajota. He managed, at least for me, to capture a quiet resignation to second class status all the while showing first class tactical skill and courage. The two Japanese secret police villains are superb--urbane, confident, polite and murderous. I've seen neither of them before. It also has Dale Dye as Lt. General Kreuger (whoever that was) and as the film's 'technical advisor'. Apparently there is a law out there that all American war movies must have Dale Dye in them.
In short, this is a movie where the heavily outnumbered good guys kick ass and take names and the bad guys die. What else do you want in a summer flick?
Not everyone has liked it, like this Stephen Holden, a movie reviewer at the New York Times. He said the movie was
a tedious World War II epic that slogs across the screen like a forced march in quicksand...it illustrates a depressing similarity between reckless war-mongering and grandiose moviemaking. Historical films with vainglorious ambitions, like ill-fated imperial ventures, often overlook the human factor, a miscalculation that usually results in a rout.
I have absolutely no idea what he's talking about. What "reckless war-mongering"? What "vainglorious ambition"? What "ill-fated imperial ventures"? Is he comparing this movie, set in 1945, to the current situation in Iraq? Let's take these questions in order.
Showing a historically accurate account of awell fought, little battle in a big war is not "war-mongering," what ever that means, with or without a mens rea. Accuracy in what the movie shows isn't the same as celebrating war. The Japanese had vainglorious ambition to try to conquer the area around them but the Rangers out to save the lives of their fellow servicemen had a purer motive and far from being big-headed and boastful (which is what vainglorious means) the Americans were the very models of self-effacing competence. Likewise, the Japanese invasions of the nations and islands around their home islands were indeed imperial ventures which I'm led to believe led to a somewhat bad end for Japan. But something tells me that movie critic Holden was not applying this term to the Japanese. Whom, exactly, he was referring to is necessarily a guess because he's just not very good a writer. Finally, since the three terms Holden throws about can't apply to the Americans in the movie and don't make any sense if applied to the Japanese, there has to be a broader sense he is using them for, like commenting on current war situations. But Iraq has nothing to do with the fight against Imperial Japan except that our boys are out there risking life and limb mainly for the benefit of others, just like we did in WWII.
I know I'm getting sidetracked here but the NYT review gets worse. Then Holden trots out this gem:
Its scenes of torture and murder also unapologetically revive the uncomfortable stereotype of the Japanese soldier as a sadistic, slant-eyed fiend.
I'm stealing the below quoted comment about this sentence from Small Dead Animals but I couldn't have said it better if I had taken weeks to write this.
If you read the Holden quote again, you'll see a favorite rhetorical trick of the left (or, as the Italians say it, 'la sinestra'). Look at the phrase "the stereotype of the Japanese soldier as a sadistic, slant-eyed fiend".
First, why 'slant-eyed'? Is someone claiming that the soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army DIDN'T actually have epicanthal folds? Is someone claiming that these folds somehow caused or excused certain behaviors? Would the actions depicted be somehow less sadistic or fiendish if the perpetrators had, say, both eyes on the same side of their heads like a flounder?
No. Eyes (in quantities up to but not exceeding two and uniformly distributed) are expected on fiends and friends alike. I'll go out on a limb here and say that's pretty much a norm that we're all comfortable with. Same for the eyelids. So why bring it up?
Precisely because it IS an ethnic slur, and one of the worst sort possible in 21st century American culture -- it's a slur based on a visible ethnic difference. White Americans have a massive guilt complex when it comes to 'visible' ethnicity, and any phrase that reminds them of that complex is therefore extremely uncomfortable. We've been trained for four decades to automatically reject any phrase or concept that implies that a visual ethnic difference is an indicator of character or ability.
Stupid as it sounds, some people may be willing to call a sadistic fiend a sadistic fiend, but not if it involves throwing in an ethnic slur. I'm not saying this is a Bad Thing, I just resent it's being used gratuitously to manipulate opinion.
Now, if Holden had simply referred to "the stereotype of the Japanese soldier as a sadistic fiend", most people would have recognized the other trick he used -- using the word 'stereotype' as a synonym for 'reputation'. Most of us Boomers were trained starting in high school that "stereotypes are Bad", and ethnic stereotypes are the worst; we automatically reject anything that perpetuates harmful ethnic stereotypes, except, of course, for stereotyping all Americans of Italian descent as being murdering, sadistic, racist Mafia thugs -- which is nothing more than good TV.
So, there you have it, the phrase "the reputation of the Japanese soldier as a sadistic fiend", which would have conjured up an indisputable historic fact, is replaced by a phrase that somehow makes the reader feel that any suspicion about the behavior of the Japanese soldier during WWII must be the result of western (American) racism.
Amazing what a few well-placed words can do, isn't it?
See also Scott Johnson's thoughtful post on the subject at Powerline
OK enough about poorly educated movie critics' cryptic or stupid comments about the movie. Now to the gun stuff. They pick out ten guys to shoot for an attempted escape (you saw it coming) and the officer has a Nambu 14th year pistol (which looks like a copy of a Luger made by a guy who's legally blind) and he walks behind each of the kneeling Americans and puts a bullet through their brain stem and out the throat. The POWs fall down like sacks of potatoes. But the Nambu only holds 8 in the clip and the officer stops after number 6 to put in a new clip for the last 4. (This scene is a great improvement over the Nazi head shots with an eight shot P-38 in the hard as a diamond movie The Grey Zone where the SS guard never reloads). The Japanese guard in our movie had to crank back the bolt to seat another round after he put in a new clip, because he did not shoot out the entire clip (which would have held the bolt open). Even though the Nambu round (8mm) is necked down, it's not as powerful as the Luger's round, 9mm parabellum, but up close that doesn't seem to matter.
I've always wondered why anyone would put a bayonet on a full auto weapon like the the Type 99 light machine gun the murderous Major Nagai has, but he uses it against the top (1st sergeant) and almost gets him except he failed to secure properly his bulbous Nambu holster.
Almost all our guys have M-1 Garands, except for Bratt's character, Lt. Col. Mucci, who has a Springfield 1903 (and unlike the religious sniper in Saving Private Ryan who can crank off 7 or 8 rounds left handed (from a gun which holds only 5) without reloading, Bratt, over iron sites, knocks down 5 Japanese soldiers slogging through a river. Then he's done.
The movie is based on Ghost Soldiers by Hampton Sides and the The Great Raid on Cabanatuan by William Breuer, and I'm told both are great reads.
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 3:14 PM 
Comments:
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I saw the movie "because" the NYT reviewer panned it, and because my father fought for three years in the Pacific. A gentle and kind man, dad still bristles when the subject of the Japanese comes up. I've never witnessed any kind of racial ugliness from him, but time has not tempered his distaste for the Japanese. It is as much a part of him as a southern accent.
I agree with your review and the one posted on Powerline. It's a good film and should be seen by all. Not a great film, but it's more like the kinds of things Hollywood used to produce until it became an arm of the DNC. A few details could have improved it. I never would have shot Connie Nielsen towering above a mass of natives, it reminds the viewer how implausible her situation would have been. The woman she played, when seen in the last b/w clip was nondescript and of average height and build. She was able to blend, and that's the point. A tall leggy beauty like Nielsen would not have escaped the investigator's eye for long. She would have lacked the tradecraft's most important asset, that intangible ability to blend in. So I would have cut down on the makeup and never photographed her looming above a crowd. Small point, I know.
I didn't have an issue with Fiennes physical makeup and at the end, I found a compelling reason why it didn't bother me. the b/w film of the survivors showed a lot of guys that were in pretty good shape. Some even had a little fat around their middles. If Fiennes was not confined to the infirmary until the end, would he have looked similar to those guys walking from the camp in the b/w film or the guys being carried from the camp? Who knows...
And lastly, Mr Bratt's final line to the captain was simply a let down. The writer/director should have maintained his through line and asked the captain, what Bratt had assured him from the beginning. That nothing he would ever do would rival what he was about to do. At the end, Bratt should have asked, "Are you proud of what you accomplished?" The captain would answer "yes" and Bratt would give him a fatherly pat on the shoulder and reply, "Good. Your country is proud of you."
That's how the film should have ended, but of course, if it did, the NYT reviewer would have choked on his croissant. Hmmm, there's a thought...
I agree with everything else you said, and also loved the Filipino captain. Bright, committed, brave beyond measure. The Japanese thugs were well-played, I muttered my goodbyes to the screen as they died.
It's a go to film.
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I agree with your review and the one posted on Powerline. It's a good film and should be seen by all. Not a great film, but it's more like the kinds of things Hollywood used to produce until it became an arm of the DNC. A few details could have improved it. I never would have shot Connie Nielsen towering above a mass of natives, it reminds the viewer how implausible her situation would have been. The woman she played, when seen in the last b/w clip was nondescript and of average height and build. She was able to blend, and that's the point. A tall leggy beauty like Nielsen would not have escaped the investigator's eye for long. She would have lacked the tradecraft's most important asset, that intangible ability to blend in. So I would have cut down on the makeup and never photographed her looming above a crowd. Small point, I know.
I didn't have an issue with Fiennes physical makeup and at the end, I found a compelling reason why it didn't bother me. the b/w film of the survivors showed a lot of guys that were in pretty good shape. Some even had a little fat around their middles. If Fiennes was not confined to the infirmary until the end, would he have looked similar to those guys walking from the camp in the b/w film or the guys being carried from the camp? Who knows...
And lastly, Mr Bratt's final line to the captain was simply a let down. The writer/director should have maintained his through line and asked the captain, what Bratt had assured him from the beginning. That nothing he would ever do would rival what he was about to do. At the end, Bratt should have asked, "Are you proud of what you accomplished?" The captain would answer "yes" and Bratt would give him a fatherly pat on the shoulder and reply, "Good. Your country is proud of you."
That's how the film should have ended, but of course, if it did, the NYT reviewer would have choked on his croissant. Hmmm, there's a thought...
I agree with everything else you said, and also loved the Filipino captain. Bright, committed, brave beyond measure. The Japanese thugs were well-played, I muttered my goodbyes to the screen as they died.
It's a go to film.
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