A flawed but good film

Rating: 7/10 (2 July 2004)

A film trying to better Dances with Wolves was always going to have to pull out the stops and for the most part this film manages it. The sweeping vistas, the beautiful countryside are all recurring themes in both of these films, where the Last Samurai actually exceeds expectation is that into the cocktail mixer of plot lines, they have thrown in, for good measure a dash of "redemption of the soul".
Cruise does his best and is fairly convincing as a military commander who has lost his way, disillusioned by the politics surrounding decisions in war. He genuinely looks peaceful and serene (and who wouldn't be in an idyllic village where all you have to do is exactly what you WANT to do) and is also convincing in major battle scenes.
However the film has a major flaw as far as I am concerned and people can criticise the script, the directing, the production, the special effects as long as you like, I really don't care, it's a good film in my opinion. But what REALLY irritated me about this film is that the first half of it is spent building up the fact that the Samurai have been masters of war for a thousand years and that they are highly noble, honourable, self-trained killers. Tom Cruises character comes along and all of a sudden the mighty Samurai leader looks to Tom for ever single battle decision that needs to be made, for either reassurance or inspiration. It's ridiculous! At some moments, Tom actually orders the troops himself without actually consulting the leader! It's yet another "Thank god the Americans have come along to fight the war for us, we never would have coped without them! which I find utterly hilarious because the Americans have a terrible reputation in war - they haven't won against a major power war since WW2 (Iraq is not a major power) and wouldn't have even won that if it hadn't of been for the British resistance beforehand and afterwards.
This film would have been an awful lot better if they had taken the chest beating American stuff out of it.