Life is short...don't waste 3 hours watching this film

Rating: Null/10 (24 August 2002)

This could be the most boring movie I have ever watched. I don't know how it got nominated for an academy award unless the academy members heard that in the theaters when the movie was over the audiences stood up and cheered. The thing is, they weren't cheering for the movie, they were cheering because it was over.
This movie has a beginning and what might be called an end, but in between there is vast nothingness. There is no plot or storyline. It consists of battle scenes interspersed with the characters' philisophical rambling thoughts which mostly mean nothing because they make no sense.
The acting in this film is horrendous. John Travolta is unconvincing and looks puffy with what appears to be a really bad pair of false teeth. Sean Penn plays himself in that he only shows two emotions throughout the picture, anger and disgust. Nick Nolte would play an excellent raving lunatic except I don't think his character is supposed to be a raving lunatic. John Savage does play a lunatic, but he comes off as the comic relief. The vast majority of the time that John Cusack is on the screen he is just staring at his superior officer. George Clooney could have been good if he had been in the film for longer than 5 minutes. Woody Harrelson is trying so hard not to be "Woody from Cheers" that that is all you can think about. There is a stellar performance by Jack (no last name) as "old man walking through the field". Sorry, that's only understandable if you've already seen this exercise in boredom trying to pass itself off as a great piece of cinema.
If you choose to watch this film, don't say I didn't warn you.