Is OK but is too dull & long for an action movie and too confused for the worthy, thoughtful mantel it tries to take on (spoilers)

Rating: Null/10 (18 January 2004)

Washed up and weary soldier Capt Nathan Algren is offered a job training the Emperor of Japan's troops, the money is too good to turn down. Rushed into taking his inexperienced troops into battle, they are over run and he is captured by the Samurai, however leader Katsumoto allows him to life and takes him back to their village. Algren finds that his desire to learn of his enemy is replaced by an understanding and empathy with their aims over the more mercenary forces pulling the Emperor's strings.
The Oscar talk seemed to begin even before this film finished post-production and the interviews about the film have rarely done anything other than gush about `Ed', `Tom' or the epic way of the Samurai. However viewing the film it is hard to leave the cinema without a feeling of a film that mixes action with long periods of dullness and ultimately confuses itself and the audience as to it's actual point. The plot manages to avoid any strands of originality and if you are unable to guess the direction of the film after 10 minutes then something is wrong. The ending of the film is about as perfect an example of what a cop out it was and is dreary rather than exciting. Sure it has big epic battles that the director proudly boasts contain no CGI, but these are a small part of the running time and yet it seems more effort went into these than any other aspect of the film.
Certainly the plot could have done with a great deal more work - it can't sustain the running time and too much of it is slow; I'm sure this was done because the subject is worthy and `epic' (which often means long and slow, not a problem for those that deserve it), however here the film doesn't warrant it and the end result is it being slightly dull. The film suffers from the fact that it doesn't know what moral stance it wants to take - this is made more obvious by the fact that (in the UK) this film and Cold Mountain came out quite close to one another. Whereas Mountain has the clear view that war is hell regardless of the worthiness of the reason, Samurai wants war to be both hellish AND honourable. Hence the film has to make Algren's experiences MORE hellish by having his unit killing innocents, so that `normal' war can be seen as something good in a sense. The cast and audience share this confusion. Algren's fate at the end of the film is more Hollywood than Samurai and Watanabe (who played Katsumoto) has spoken in interviews of the difficulties he had of relating to a character who would lead hundreds to certain death for `honour'.
The film settles on the idea that dying for a cause is honourable and offers good deaths for those who die and redemption for Algren. For the sections of the audience who think about that, it is a difficult thing to swallow. I didn't think about it till I got home and saw the news of yet another suicide bombing in the Middle East. The film's point about the honour of the Samurai versus the West is OK until when dealing with honour among men and the ideas of a balanced society. However when you carry it as far as this film does then you are saying that `an honourable man will not meet someone halfway - if he believes he is right he will give his life, no matter how difficult it seems'. Sadly this is what the 9/11 killers did, this is what suicide bombers do and I found the film very difficult to accept when it appeared that it was promoting this. I know of course that this was not the intention of the film - but by failing to have a grip on what it was doing below the surface, this film does just that.
The script is full of Oriental wonderings and fortune cookie sentiment that prevent the audience ever really getting close to the characters. Cruise is OK but his role isn't as deep and tortured as he thinks it is. It is really quite an obvious role and, while doing OK as a movie star, he cannot do much from an acting point of view. Does he deserve an Oscar? Yes he does - but for Magnolia, not for this! Watanabe deserves a nomination for Supporting Actor and I hope he gets that (but not the award) for he does a good job of making this man likeable where, were he alive today he would be classed a terrorist. His confusion of the character has been well hidden and I felt he was a good actor for being able to do that. Atherton plays the `baddie' of the piece (it's Hollywood - there has to be one or the audience gets confused), while Spall and Connolly add colour but not much else. The Japanese support cast are all OK but none are given characters and are left in `honourable' clichés. The only interesting one was Koyuki's Taka (who struggles having the man who killed her husband in her house) but this is given precious little screen time.
The script and confused politics are not Zwick's fault and he does well with what he can do - the scenery looks great and the film generally have a good oriental feel to it in setting, costume, sets and movement. However this film is only OK. As an action movie it is too long and dull. As a meaningful epic, it is confused and not worthy of the aspirations that it has. I left wondering what all the fuss was about despite taking something from it overall.