Pretentious waste of time

Rating: 4/10 (5 March 2005)

I was looking forward when this film came out to a realistic portrayal of men at war in the Pacific.Instead Terrance Mann gives us this artsy film of soldiers of an Army unit on Guadalcanal.We are first treated to scenes of the beauty of nature and this is shown in the thoughts of some of the soldiers.All the accounts that I have heard of described Guadalcanal as a fetid hellhole.I believe the troops on the island were more concerned with the malaria carrying mosquitoes,snakes and the ever present humidity.We also see the Japanese surrendering meekly in one scene;at this stage of the war few if any surrendered.A suicidal hari-kari or Banzai charge would have been their realistic fate.We also see the main characters relaxing in front of a campfire at night like a bunch of boy scouts.There would not have been any fires while out on patrol;the Japanese were experts at night infiltration and soldiers sitting at a campfire would have been rudely disturbed by a grenade or a samurai sword.
However that being said there were some well done scenes such as the attempt to take the hill and the humane captain's reluctance to send men to their death in a frontal attack. ...I don't know if John Travolta would be my first choice as a cameo of a brigadier general.