Keeps getting better

Rating: 8/10 (24 April 2011)

This flic's been out for quite awhile, but I just watched it again a few days ago for the third time. I like it better now than when I saw it when it first came out. Looking at a lot of other reviews, it seems that a lot of negative posts were based on the notion that the premise of a female successfully completing "SEAL" team training was improbable, or that it was a feminist screed. In the former case, if that was the criteria for determining good from bad there would be very few films made at all. In the latter case, where's the same rant against Ripley in Alien(s), or Starling in Silence of the Lambs, or Jeanne d'Arc in the Messenger? In any case, what I did like was the dialog. Short, ironic, cynical and to the point, just like I remember most of my discussions when I was in the Marines. "The ebb and flow of the Atlantic tides, the drift of the continents, the very position of the sun along its ecliptic. THESE are just a FEW of the things I control in my world! Is that clear?" That could have been uttered by my Sergeant Instructor at OCS. The tempo is quick, the demands of the physical regimen undercut by politics made for an interesting twist or subplot, and the positive outcome through grit and determination to overcome all obstacles was rather heartwarming. This movie didn't cause me to ponder great issues after it was over, but I was carried along by its challenge and conflict to its ultimate resolution. If you can get over your political/social predisposition going in, I suspect that you'll rather enjoy it.