Guy X

Plot synopsis:
It is 1979, four years after the end of US involvement in the Vietnam War. US Army Corporal Rudy Spruance is mistakenly sent to Qangattarsa, a remote base in Greenland still attributed to the United States Army Air Forces (disbanded in 1947), instead of his official posting in Hawaii. He soon finds out that his records have accidentally been replaced by the records of a Corporal Martin Pederson, who has been sent to Hawaii.
The base is manned by a co-ed battalion of US Army misfits, many of whom have been stationed there for over five years, doing little more than drink and sex their way through the overwhelming boredom. The only apparent military duty is to unload and reload a supply plane every couple of months. The base has been commanded for many years by the near-insane Lt. Col. L. G. Woolwrap, supported by his Aide of three years, SFC Irene Teal, his erstwhile girlfriend.
Working under the name Pederson, as the base's new Public Information Officer, Spruance starts an intimate and personal relationship with Teal. While exploring he finds out that underneath the base is a secret and highly classified hospital ward. The ward houses the six unnamed (other than letters, including W, X, Y, Z), brain dead and very physically damaged soldiers from a secret Vietnam War mission in October 1973. When Spruance/Pederson stumbles upon the ward, he develops a rapport with "Guy X", who has lucid moments that no one else knows about. Spruance sleuths out that then-Col. Woolwrap had been the leader of the mission, and has been in command of the palliative care base ever since – having signed the letters to the families of the ward patients stating that they had died in combat and that their bodies were irretrievable.
Guy X dictates a letter to Spruance, for the wife of one of his men. Spruance sneak the letter out on the next supply plane. Sometime later, in a sudden and rapid manner, the remaining mission casualties are disposed of (in an undescribed way) and the base is abandoned. Spruance and Teal find Guy X under his bed in the otherwise abandoned ward, and answer his request to see the outside world before he dies. Just as Guy X dies in the snow, Woolwrap finds them and tells Spruance and Teal that he will not abandon his men, killing himself with his sidearm. The two just make it to the last evacuation plane, where his friend Cpl Lavone informs them that he has created official paperwork giving them new names and ranks (similar to the original Spruance/Pederson mixup). As the plane flies away from Greenland, the small group is debating which base, in which (warm) country, they wish to designate in their "new" orders.

Tags: comedy

Review:
With all due respect for the previous reviewer, it makes no sense to review a film based on that reviewer's perception about what the cast and crew's attitude was like at a screening!
I was at the same screening (I think the premiere was the previous night), and you can hardly blame the cast and crew for giving mostly funny answers to the questions - they were asked about whether they had eaten puffin, what it's like to film in Iceland etc, rather than about the film's content (except at the end, when some freaky stalker-type in the front row asked whether the film had any 'hidden messages'!?!)."Guy X" is a serious film, with a light touch that means that it's unpredictable and non- generic.
Actually, I think he performs really well in "American Pie" too - he's required to do different types of acting in the two films and manages it with flying colours.
I read on the internet that he won the Best Actor performance at the festival that the film had its world premiere.If you want to see something generic, bland and predictable, avoid this film!.
This film is about a military man being mistakenly posted to a Greenland base.The problem with this film is that it tries to be comedy, thriller and mystery all at one time.
I had trouble understanding what they say.I think it could have been a good film, if it could stick to just one genre..
An engaging storyline and suggestions that it is in the mould of Catch 22 or M*A*S*H suggest great things for Guy X.
He stumbles on something that people would rather keep hidden, and is also attracted to the commanding officer's girlfriend  all of which, together with a very crazy bunch of colleagues, puts him in some quirky and irreverent danger.Adapted from a well received novel (No One Thinks of Greenland), Guy X should be a resounding success but sadly falls rather short of the mark.
Natascha McElhone performs admirably, but her performance is not enough to carry a lacklustre screenplay, fuzzy directing, a miscast leading man (Jason Biggs) and supporting characters with insufficient talent.
For American Pie (Biggs' earlier success), such shallow efforts might have been adequate, but Metzstein is clearly trying to make an art-house movie (he said as much at the UK premiere) without the necessary skills.
By the end of the film you might be holding on to see if there is going to be a final explanation, or you might be past caring whether there is one.McElhone and her colleagues, in the Q&A at its Edinburgh premiere, waxed lyrical about the book, the themes of isolation, and what it does to people (she seemed more serious about the film than the director or co-stars who mostly just joked).
American Pie. If Biggs and Metzstein want to make the jump to serious cinema, they need to go back to school first.
With such a finely nuanced story, the lead actor should be able to exhibit a depth of charisma or otherwise maintain interest in a way that goes far beyond the demands of an action flick or lowbrow comedy.
For this viewer at least, such things were not achieved in Guy X.On the positive side, McElhone is interesting, it was a great idea, and the choice of sets is unusual.
If that is enough to get you to spend your money, go for it  otherwise you might want to stay at home until this crew become more mature and deliver the sort of film that many believe they are capable of.
Actors shine in Guy X despite, at times, confusing direction.
I recently viewed Guy X at the Montreal Film Festival and I was quite impressed.
The only downside was the director's vision of what the film was to be, switching between an army slapstick, like the movie Stripes, and a military mystery, like the movie Basic.
Jason Biggs showed he can take a step away from his American Pie typecast and really deliver a dramatic performance worth noticing.
I was taken to see this film by a friend, so knew nothing about it before seeing it (except that it starred the guy from "American Pie").
I was surprised by the way, the comic tone shifted into something heavier and more serious.Then, I went home and looked the film up on the internet...
Well, he might be, but in this film he's the straight guy for sure.
Dear oh dear oh dear.About a US Army base in Greenland, this film could have been a winner.Instead, due to the lack of an engaging storyline, it is pretty dull.When the film ends, your reaction is likely to be "is that it?".Some good performances and pretty well filmed for a low budget film, but I'd say an average day at work is more interesting than this.The film is nowhere near as meaningful, funny, poignant or satirical as it thinks it is, instead it merely takes nearly two hours to tell a story which could easily have been well told in 30 minutesI saw the UK premiere at the Edinburgh Film Festival and I'd be very surprised if Guy X sets the UK box office alight when it is released in October..
Even Alien3 was more engaging than this.However, Natasha McElhorne is hot (as usual) and her femininity is the only thing worth watching in this film.
Otherwise, everyone else seems like they were hung over the day after a frat party with a great deal of drinking.Sadly, this is not a good movie even though it seems like it ...
(Jason Biggs) who is misassigned to Greenland instead of Hawaii.
The cinematography was outstanding, although it was actually Iceland in the film, not Greenland.Biggs (American Pie), Northam (Gosford Park, Happy Texas), and Natascha McElhone (Solaris, Ronin) all gave good performance that kept you interested, but not completely satisfied.
Biggs certainly enhanced his credibility as an actor in this film.Guy X?
This film is SO bad that I cant actually think of anything that would make it worse.
The transfer out should have been much more chaotic.I think it is unusual for a war film to deal with the random bureaucratic chaos of military life.
Now it all makes sense I can go to bed safe in the knowledge that I enjoyed the rest of the film and am not confused as the what, where's and why's of Guy X.The highlights for me were:The mad people The sane people The puffins The sceneryAlso on the film site I adopted a Puffin, something I recommend you all do too!.
Guy X is one of those tonally disorientating black comedies whose madcap antics hide a deeper truth, visible only to those patient enough to sift through the meandering detritus.
Jason Biggs, keeping his dick out of pies this time around, plays Rudy, a low level army grunt who is accidentally sent to an outpost right in the the Arctic, and the middle of nowhere too, as we soon see by his fellow soldier's boredom fuelled shenanigans.
It's all fun and games, to be sure, but there's a melancholic aura that hangs around, especially when Rudy discovers the titular Guy X (Michael Ironside in a transfixing cameo), a lost and forgotten soul who hints at the futility of military operations, reminding us of how we all cloak our existential dread in frosty self deprecation and ironic gallows humour.
That's the film, essentially, which I think many didn't get.
The important films are often more difficult for a idea audience to receive, they're just constructed that way.
Greenland was apparently so named so it would inspire people to come there, in the same way that half of South Africa's fortress complexes have soothing names like whispering pines, while they're overlooking a motorway truck stop.
And after seeing this film I know that it's not a place I'm going on holiday.This the story of a Yossarian-like character,played by Jason "AMERICAN PIE(4/10) " Biggs, dropped of in this desolate hell while thinking he's on his way to Hawaii; part of a snafu in the military transfer machine.
And then he discovers the base's secret.Based on the book,NO ONE THINKS OF GREENLAND, it has elements of both Catch-22 and M*A*S*H (9/10) in it, without quite capturing the original spirit of both.
Interesting point is that the film is based in 1979, just after the Vietnam war, instead of the original book which was based the same time period after the Korean War. To make it more relevant, I guess.Jeremy Northam plays a wonderful ego-centric base commander, with the uniquely attractive Natasha McElhone as his secretary Northam is an actor who's been around a while and is just itching to break into the higher acting echelons as occupied by the Fiennes.
Biggs shows that he can act outside the Pie trilogy, but I can't quite see why he was cast here.
But who the hell wants to see Jason Biggs in something other than teen slapstick.
Let me re-phrase that; who wants to see Jason Biggs at all?
Good premise and location, but unfortunately the story doesn't live up to the log-line..
The establishing shots introduce a seemingly endless and dreary vista, a concept that the film then exploits with poor acting and a mundane story line.
Set on a US Army base in Greenland Saul Metzstein shoehorns in some unsophisticated communist imagery, made more obvious from wooden badly cast characters.
The moralising of the story is minimised by the inability to sympathise or engage with the characters.There is no chemistry between Biggs and McElhone.
Unfortunately Biggs will always be the guy who did 'that' to the Apple Pie. The 'engaging hooks' the film presents are so tedious that once truths are exposed in the final act they create no greater emotional response than disinterest..
Corporal Rudy Spruance (Jason Biggs) expects to go to Hawaii but is shocked to be abandoned on an isolated base in Greenland.
Sgt. Irene Teal (Natascha McElhone) is happy to have the Public Information Officer Peterson for her base commander Col. Woolwrap (Jeremy Northam) despite knowing that he's not Peterson.
Then he discovers a secret experimental hospital ward and he befriends X (Michael Ironside).The pace is so slow that most of the quirky comedy doesn't work.
Review: I rented this movie because it looked funny in the adverts, but I never found it that amusing.
There was quite a serious under current in the movie but that wasn't enough to make the film interesting.
Disappointing.Round-Up: I know that the film is old, but I recently saw it in an advert so I thought that I would give it a chance, which was a bad mistake.
At the time of its release, it might have been funny but with all the Rom-Com's coming out lately, this is below par.
Jason Biggs career hasn't really kicked off since the American Pie series and Natascha McElone seems to act the same in all her movies even though she has acted next to people like Robert DeNiro in Ronin, George Clooney in Solaris and Brad Pitt in The Devils Own.I recommend this movie to people who are into there war comedies with a touch of conspiracy.
Interesting, beautifully photographed film stumbles in tonality.
It starts out as absurd comedy-drama (I loved the mistaken identity snafu that never gets fixed), but then it flirts with drama and then melds into an odd mystery-thriller that seems like a sub-par X-Files episode.
It was still enough to keep me interested, and not campy enough to drive me off.I liked Biggs in the lead role, and I was wondering if I could distance him from American Pie; I did, and the other actors put in some good work as well.
I wish the filmmakers had continued with the idea of purposeless army instead of straying down conspiracy alley.If Guy X had stuck with the kind of MASH-in-Greenland kind of story, I think it would have worked better.
For, when Biggs' character stumbles on the unsecured ammo depot filled with Vietnam amputees with weird prosthetics, the movie stumbles at that exact moment.
The cinematography is beautiful, the acting is decent, the absurdity is great when it isn't switching genres, but the tone and balance in the direction and the screenplay needed to be refined.
No, it's not MASH or Stripes or Catch 22 or even Jarhead, but it's a quaint, interesting - if not flawed - film in the same vein.
One of the criticisms I've read and initially felt myself that this film tried too hard to be too many things.
The film begins brightly and funnily with a soldier being unceremoniously dropped off (quite literally) in Greenland.
With a case of frustrating mistaken identity Jason Biggs' Rudy Spruance must find his feet as the bases PIO, delivering news via 'The Harpoon' in a place where nothing happens.Much like 'M*A*S*H' the army of 'Guy X' is filled with lovable goons that while away they hours with beer "No brew, no clue." and pursuing women, and Spruance is no exception chasing after the lovely Irene Teal.
All seems destined for a happy romp beneath the eyes of an ignorant Colonel.Then comes Guy X, played with subtle futility and anguish by a brilliant Michael Ironside, an un-named amputee secluded deep in the base.
The comfortably absurd becomes hellish and violent and the futility and sadness of the soldiers existence becomes ever more apparent "We guard things, that's what we do!".A sublime comedy that reveals that even what appears to be happily absurd can hide the darkest secret and people trapped in their own personal darkness (all the soldiers are at the base due to their own failings), despite their outward abandon and merriment..
For some months now I kept seeing trailers on other rented DVDs advertising "Guy X", and the trailers looked promising.
The trailer sold this quirky Indy film as a black comedy - a Beckett-like theatre of the absurd meets "Buffalo Soldiers".
So, naturally, when it was finally released I snatched it off the shelf, eager to watch the charming Jason Biggs breaking off from his teen comedy comfort zone...
and the first twenty minutes of the film looked promising.
The makers of this film have suckered in unsuspecting viewers to watch their incoherent, badly scripted conspiracy movie-with-a-message by promising a black comedy with Jason Biggs.
I hope the losers who made this film will never be allowed to make another movie for as long as they live..
i had heard a radio interview with Jason Biggs prior to seeing 'Guy X', so knew what general tone to expect, although was totally drawn in by the atmosphere and how seamlessly the story unfolds.
Jason Biggs shows how much more than 'American Pie' he is capable of, with a truly natural and understated performance - something echoed by the rest of the cast.a very thought-provoking film.
it starts off as an abstract 'out-there' comedy of sorts, although by the end has been firmly brought back down to earth, as you realise the 'madness' of the soldiers on the base is a totally understandable reaction to their situation, and a necessary coping strategy.
this is the perfect backdrop to the real story - a comment on the Vietnam war, and the impact it had on those involved, including the American government's 'damage limitation' and cover-ups.i was not familiar with Saul Metzstein's work, but will definitely be on the look-out for future films, as i will for films starring Jason Biggs - a talent to watchhighly recommended.
I really have seen few better films in 2005 than this Metzstein tour-DE-force.
A departure from his debut, to be sure, but you've got to love Jason Biggs in the lead role.
It's about this weird American army base in the frozen norths, set during the cold war.
In fact, the final scenes in which Biggs and the very beautiful Natasha whats her name from The Truman Show try to get their asses off the base are all shot in a flurry of blizzards.
The movie loses a point for a flimsy act three beginning, but all in all I loved this slice of atmospheric genius.
Open at an army base in the middle of nowhere.
Jason Biggs steps off a plane, to discover he's a victim of mistaken identity, shipped to the wrong army barracks.
And whilst Guy X has funny moments, unfortunately they are few and far between whilst this film tries to decide what it wants to be.
weird, mysterious story on military base.
Soldier Rudy Spruance (Jason Biggs) gets dropped off at a U.S. military base on Greenland by mistake...
Spruance occasionally talks with Sgt. Teal (Natascha McElhone, who looks and sounds like Jane Seymour), who seems to believe his story, but doesn't care.
This probably would have made a great TV series, but doesn't really go anywhere as a film.
The acting by Biggs is pretty good, but the story is so lame, that it just doesn't work.
Weird anti military film seems to belong in a different era.
This anti-war film was made in 2005 but the story is set in 1979.
What it has is a lot of snafus that the base staff and administration are not interested in correcting.
Maybe the novel this movie is based on is readable, but this flick is barely watchable.
A couple tips to director Saul Metzstein: 1)don't have TWO SCENES of nude chicks streaking on an army base if you can't afford at least 40 watts of lighting, and 2)if your plot involves a secret ward for horribly disfigured war casualties, provide some "back story" before the film is finished!TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: The body of noted American author (An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge) Ambrose Bierce, born June 24, 1842, recently was discovered in total cryogenic hibernation at the back of a Central American warehouse.