Should be required viewing for anyone 13-40

Rating: 8/10 (4 June 2001)

This is actually two movies: a sappy love story that is totally useless (until the last five minutes, then it's all worth it), and a gripping, intense dramatization of the real life horror of Pearl Harbor. The director does an outstanding job of depicting the terror of the situation, without resorting to "severed limbs" tactics. I was especially impressed with the use of the "halo-like haze" in the hospital scenes. One gets the impression that, under such extreme circumstances, that may well have been just how the doctors and nurses saw it. He also pays excellent attention to details of that fateful morning. Ben Affleck is okay, but the real star is Josh Hartnett. His affable character and boyish shyness make him the hero of the story as much or more than his courageous deeds. Cuba Gooding, Jr. plays the best (albeit a small) part as a young black soldier, fiercely and lovingly loyal to his country and his commander in what were for blacks in the 1940s Navy very difficult circumstances. His poignant words of comfort to his dying Captain, and again later at the flag-draped casket, are some of the most memorable scenes of the film. As I said, this movie should be required viewing for anyone between 13 and 35 (I'm 36), lest we forget (or worse yet, ignore) the horrible, bloody cost of the freedom we enjoy. Here in Tennessee, we have a state representative who refuses to say the Pledge of Allegiance in the House Chambers. I'd like to sit her @#% down and make her watch this film, then explain to her that the flag she says represents "oppression" represents a country in which she was free to be elected!