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The War Lover (1962)
Oh. My. God.
It is difficult to express just how terrible this movie is. I have seen plenty of older movies and I understand film conventions pretty well. Acting and directing styles, writing, cinematography - these have all changed over the years, and one should not expect a movie from 1962 to play just like a movie from 2007. That said, the writing was goofy, the cuts frequent and disorienting. The acting was silly, the realism (aside from the fact that flying B-17s and stock WWII footage are used) just wasn't there. I have seen WWII movies, I have read books, I know plenty about the ins and outs of a B-17 mission. If you want to see something decent, watch "12 O'clock High" which, though made more than a decade before "The War Lover" is superior in most every respect.
I just took the 20 minute tour of the DVD. I was excited to watch this movie, having just finished Hersey's novel (which was well-researched, well-written, and gritty). My excitement has turned to pure scorn. Maybe today a decent adaptation could be made (it would have to be PG-13 at the least for gore and sexual content), but this movie just doesn't cut it. Doesn't even come close. My guess is that the only reason it's on DVD is because it has McQueen (who, yes, is perfectly cast for the character).
I have a liberal approach to movies...I embrace all kinds with good will. There are some pretty bad movies that I simply adore. I'm not much of a film snob. But seriously, don't waste your time on "The War Lover."
Spies Like Us (1985)
Clearly a controversial film.
Usually it speaks well for a movie if it is controversial and divisive. However, a quick perusal of user comments for Spies Like Us will show that there is no controversy over politics, morality, or historical accuracy. Apparently, you either like this movie or you don't.
I like it. I love it. Always have, always will. That doesn't mean I'm going to be the foremost partisan and start bashing people on the head who disagree. But as one who feels that this flick is worth a watch, at the very least, so that the viewer can decide for him/herself, I think it is my clear duty to say why Spies Like Us rocks my world. I can't make a guarantee: "You'll love this movie!" But I do firmly believe that it is at least worth the three bucks to rent it for a week.
Summary without spoilers: Spies Like Us is the story of two government rubes--Chevy Chase is Emmet Fitzhume, a low-level D.C.-based diplomat, with next to no dedication to his work; he just followed blindly in the footsteps of his father and grandfather. Austin Milbarge is a code-breaker and all-things-electric guru who works a dead-end job in the subterranean bowels of the Pentagon. Both men want something more, and have signed up for the Foreign Service exam. However they become the pawns in a deadly cloak-and-dagger operation run by a secretive government agency that fronts as the Ace Tomato Company and the commander of an underground Air Force base. Soon Austin and Emmet find themselves hurried through training and thrust into a mission that will take them across Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan.
Well there's your back-of-box story. So far it doesn't sound very different from Three Days of the Condor, or Sneakers, or some other movie without Robert Redford (hey, Spies Like Us doesn't have Robert Redford, so there you go). But of course this movie is laced heavily throughout with Ackroyd's strait-laced goofiness and Chase's masterful physical ineptitude. It may not have been a stretch for either one of these men to perform their characters...maybe they really did just walk onto the set, do their thing, sign some autographs, flirt with actresses, collect their pay and scoot. But "doing their thing" is what works for these guys. It's like Adam Sandler--he does his schtick and you laugh or you groan.
I have to disagree heartily with those comments that put down the directing and the script. This is one of the most quotable movies I know, for better or for worse, and while I wasn't really watching for direction too much, I found nothing seriously amiss. I think this movie, as a broad comedy, works.
Granted: this movie was etched onto my brain at a very tender age. I saw it in the theater at the age of five. I watched it again and again for years, up to the present day. It is dear to me, and so I probably graciously look past its flaws. If you are so annoyed at anachronism, eighties movies, star comic duos, inane jokes, cameos, and improbable endings that you just cannot, will not think of anything else while you watch, then you just may not like it all that much, or possibly you're just a stuffed shirt.
The cameos: Frank Oz, B.B. King, Terry Gilliam, John Landis, et al. Hey, when I was a kid the only cameo I actually recognized was Bob Hope, so it didn't bother me at all. Of course, having never seen a Hope movie at that point, I didn't much get it anyway.
Further comment on another track: this movie is also a broad satire, the subtlety of which is often almost eclipsed by the jokes and pratfalls. But if you look for it, it's there at every turn. If you didn't live through part of the Cold War, it may not be very obvious at all, or may merely appear dull and lifeless. But this movie took place in the midst of perestroika. This time was a curious mix of paranoia, fear, threat, tentative cooperation and normalization. And of course part of it is set in Afghanistan towards the end of the Soviet war there, a region which has taken on an entirely new meaning in the last few years in the minds of any American exposed to the popular press. I like to think that the satire still works; indeed it is very like Dr. Strangelove, but while the latter movie was comic-absurdist, Spies Like Us appropriates the power of Strangelove and subsumes it under hilarity. It is up to the individual viewer to decide if this works or not.
Finally, once again, the script: I think it really works. I think Ackroyd and Chase and, indeed, most of the other actors nail it. The dialogue between the Ace Tomato boys and the Air Force general is pretty fun. Some scripts just stink, and others are undeniably superb, and others can go either way. A joke can stand or fall. I don't deliver jokes very well, but someone else can take my exact words and make it funny. Monty Python, for instance, I think is freakin' hilarious---BUT, when I hear anybody else try to imitate their style, delivery or writing, I usually think it's incredibly dorky, lame, and irritating, which is to say absolutely unbearable. A case in point would be my college humor magazine, which confined itself to attempted British humor and Mac/PC/Windows/Linux jokes, and often tried to combine the two. Dreadful. But check out the quotes page for this movie, and try to imagine the lines being delivered by the actors. What looks flat in print often comes to life on the screen.
Here's a little sample, perhaps a mild SPOILER: It starts with Russian KGB, in dialogue with Fitzhume (with apologies for errors; it's been a while): (Brandishing shiny blade) "Every thirty seconds you do not tell us why you're here, I cut off a finger." "Mine or yours?" "Yours." "Damn!" "You have twenty seconds." "You're not going to start humming the theme from Jeopardy, are you?(Gets slapped by second KGB.) Why are you still hitting me? He's gonna cut my fingers off!"
Okay, so now I'm really done--if you consider yourself intelligent and receptive to different kinds of humor, from high-brow to low-brow, from Coen bros to the Farrelly bros, and are willing to look past a few inherent flaws, I think there is a good chance, maybe 65%, that you will really like this movie. So give it a go.
It's a helluva lot better than Mamet.
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)
Tries for too many marks and so misses each one.
I watched this movie on video the other night and managed to get through it on its action merits. I can see why the film's faults occurred, but I think it could have been handled better.
My main issue with the film is its choppy nature, poor characterization, and reliance on action to produce plot and pathos.
We begin with no backstory, which is not a sin in itself, but then too little follows for my taste. Clearly the director is trying to bring us into the immediacy of the story and represent to us how very far from home the Surprise really is. But instead of telling a story of the few principal characters, or indulging us with loads of context, we are brought briefly (episodically, as one comment put it) into the minds of several characters. Other films have accomplished this well, particularly certain war movies or flicks that depend on characters for plot like "Magnolia" and "Happiness." However to my viewing, these episodes seemed like plot twists; I was therefore surprised when they were merely dropped, albeit dramatically. They flat-out failed to add to the plot and so do not justify however many minutes of film they took up.
***SPOILER FOLLOWs***[A mild one; relationship between two characters]
The most promising plot development (or so I thought) had to do with the increasing conflict between the captain and his closest confidant--there is a moral and ethical battle, of the Moby Dick variety, that begins between the captain and the doctor but then goes...nowhere. In the midst of all this the action seemed rather gratuitous and nearly an afterthought.
If you examine the plot, it is fairly obvious and thin, and where the movie showed promise--in its characters--it either dropped the ball or did not have the time to go where it needed to go. In short, this movie didn't quite deliver as adventure or drama, and at times wanted to be a character film rather than action/adventure. The end result feels to me chopped and poorly edited/conceived.
Somewhat worth renting, 5/10. Parts are too graphic for the kids, but too stultifying for adults. If it's period adventure you want with tall ships and muskets and marines and battles, you had better go see Pirates of the Caribbean (superior story and characterization, equal production value, more action). Or on land, the very-low-budget BBC productions of the "Sharpe's" series. Or just read the books, and get all the characters and all the action, I guess.