War is not about glory

Rating: 5/10 (14 August 2002)

If there is one thing to learn from this movie, its that war is not pretty. Some have taken it upon themselves to compare this movie to Saving Private Ryan-a motion, in my opinion, that makes absolutely no sense. If Saving Private Ryan is exemplifies the heroics and glory of war, this movie showed the pain, horror, courage and the madness of war. The numerous actors were probably not so brilliant in their performance but the idea of casting such major clean cut personas like Clooney (and others) in certain roles just seemed to underscore the madness of war when it is influenced so heavily on personal politics.
Unfortunately any undulating praise for the movie ends there. I have not read the book so perhaps I do not appreciate the movie as much as I could-but does a person have to know the book to enjoy a movie? I don't think so. This movie suffered from the dreaded `Earnest Whisper' where throughout the film a whispered voice over would babble profound phrases that in many cases delve into the realm of death, God, chaos, and nature leaving the movie watcher puzzled as to what's going on. The movie therefore becomes not so much a war movie but more a mystical space in time where the viewer feels besmirched by this harsh reality.
Usually I would really enjoy this type of poetic meanderings, but it severely slowed the pacing of the already long movie and many times these phrases just didn't impact me at all. Thank heavens I didn't see this in the movie theater or I would have fallen asleep-at least at home I had the luxury of writing down the scene number and coming back to the movie the next day!
Apocalypse Now did a much better job of pacing and mysticism and it seemed to me that the crew for this movie was trying to reach that level of diving into the darkness. In their obvious trying they failed and we're left with a long, depressing mystical film that has some war shots. Don't get me wrong, I appreciated watching it but I'm not going to buy it. If you're into that type of flick, enjoy, if you would rather have a movie that goes somewhere, rent Apocalypse Now.