Zwick, Cinematic master of Warfare

Rating: Null/10 (2 February 2004)

Admittingly, I've never followed Edward Zwick's career too closely despite the fact that I adore one of his previous films, Glory, and found the Siege, while a lesser result, still worth the rental price.
I had my doubts about this film. From the previews, I really didn't care to see it. I mean, Tom Cruise in a world with Samurai? Yeah, right. I went into this expecting to not like it solely for that, and as the movie started it got worse Â– the beginning felt so prepackaged, so typical, so not-like what I'd expect from Zwick.
Maybe Zwick wanted to get the obligatory setup out of the way, because the beginning does feel obligatory; however, fifteen minutes into the film, I felt I was getting to the story Zwick wanted me to see. From then on, the film was a complete delight, and I came out with a new favorite performance for Cruise. And now I'm convinced that even after a decade, Edward Zwick can still topple the efforts of Terrence Malick, John Woo, Michael Bay, and rival those of Spielberg in making a great war film. I can't say that I'd quite place him in league with Schaffner, though . . . the tiny nit-picky details prevent that, but Zwick's pretty damn close.
Like Schaffner's Patton, Last Samurai is about men and not their wars (definite plus). It explores these people--their strengths, weaknesses, their problems--and it does not just `tell us about it' (ie, Thin Red Line.) All the psychological and philosophical points Malick's film tried to get at, Zwick nails. Thin Red Line spent enough time with each character to let them ask stupid redundant questions that are so primitive we stop caring about the question and the guy asking or we just assume it's tapping into a deep metaphorical basis to give meaning to our lowly lives. Zwick is better than that. Zwick not only asks superior, more meaningful, questions, but he sticks around so we know these are genuine issues the characters face, then Zwick is bold enough to answer those proposed questions. When the film closes he leaves the audience to ponder those answers. My only gripe in this regard is that towards the end of the film Zwick goes a little overboard answering. Like I've said in many reviews - Zwick, you know you have an intelligent audience. You're better than this over-explanatory Hollywood stuff.
In my mind, the real strength of Last Samurai lay in its masterful on-screen direction compliments of Zwick, the beautiful lighting and cinematography provided by John Toll, and seamless editing by Rosenblum & Dubois . . . and of course, Zimmer combining Eastern and Western instrumentation to create a very intriguing, and in many instances, very original score. Zwick has a style all of its own in directing large scale action, and I can't quite place my finger on how to describe it. It's kind of a step back to old-school filmmaking, a step away from the Wachowski brothers and Michael Bay's MTV music-video epileptic cuts. And somehow, Zwick's style maintains a high level of freshness, ingenuity, and artistic flair . . . his action is crisp and clear, communicates actions and relative geometry as to lose the audience and it does more than that. In other words, it's pure Edward Zwick magic.
Watching Zwick's masterfully-composed imagery unfold under the orchestral fanfare of Hans Zimmer on the big screen made me long to experienced the Zwick/Horner film Glory and its magnificent charging Fort Wagner scene this same way.