two-thirds a great war movie

Rating: 9/10 (11 August 2006)

my father was wounded in a parachute drop during the battle of the bulge. three quarters of that troop did not survive. George s. Patton probably saved my father's life, and certainly the lives of those trapped in bastogne.
when i was a child i thought 'Sgt. york' the best thing that ever happened on film. it wasn't until i was about twenty-five that i realized it was a crack-pot's wet dream, and a poor apology for the incarceration and out-right murder of pacifists during world-war-one - which was an aristocrat's war the u.s. should never have fought.
Patton was right that there was little difference between the Nazis and the republican party. the current demonization of pacifists by the republican-controlled media is proof enough of this.
this film is two thirds of the greatest war movie ever made in America, because Patton is a complex character presented with impossible chores, most of which he actually accomplishes, and with real chutzpah. and an American chutzpah, i should point out. for all his dandy-isms, he was a nose-to-the-grind-stone servant of his army and its national mission.
the film is magnificently photographed, and dramatically remarkable from the opening speech, all the way up until - the battle of the bulge. before this moment, Patton is wide open to all the cutting criticism that the writers' quietly embed in their script.
but in the battle of the bulge, Patton proved that he could be a solid tactician; that he well understood the suffering - and the potential - of his men; that his grasp on the inter-relationship between tactic and strategy was as strong as he always claimed; that his swift interventions, as bloody as they seemed, actually reduced the casualty-cost of battle; and that he actually knew what he was talking about in his poetic ramblings on history.
this doesn't make him a great man - but he certainly was a great general.
once presented with this fact, the writers of the movie lose control of their character and their film, and the director - who should be the one to recognize this and salvage it - fumbles about along with them.
too bad. as it is, George c. Scott's performance is rightly legendary, and saves the film from its crumbling finale. this remains his golden moment - and to the extent that he performs George s. Patton exactly as he ought to be played - and he does, - this remains not only Scott's shining moment, but one of the great performances of film history.