"Pearl Harbor" wanted to be this...

Rating: Null/10 (17 April 2003)

...a tale of tempestuous love affairs, set against the backdrop of an Army base in Hawaii. It really is more of a melodrama than a war movie.
Far from being a sappy-sweet weeper, this movie derives great power from the perverse bitterness of its characters' lives and loves. ((SPOILER ALERT!!))
You'll watch, morbidly fascinated, as the extremely efficient, respectable, physically-and-mentally-fit Sgt. Warden seduces his bumbling CO's slutty wife...and as the multi-talented, handsome loner Pvt. Prewitt apparently doesn't know any better than to fall in love with a whorehouse "hostess". Meantime there is plenty of Cool-Hand-Luke style psychotorture, Frank Sinatra as a likeable sidekick, an actually pretty good song, copious sloppy drunkenness and, last but not least, the ominous knowledge (on our part) that these guys have no idea what's about to hit them on Dec. 7.
My only complaint was that, at times, the dialogue was a bit stagey (the CO's wife when the Sgt. visits her at home, for example)...but by the end you'll have forgotten all that. This movie, and its beautifully wretched characters, will certainly stick in your mind.