Reviews

Thoroughly mediocre Cable TV adaptation of Howard Fast's Revolutionary War novel dramatizing the events leading up to The Battle of Trenton. Jeff Daniels stars as General Washington and his measured portrayal of the General as a grimly determined and quietly desperate man is virtually the sole highlight of the film. He quite accurately presents us with Washington' flashes of anger and subtle lack of military self esteem while preserving the dignity and strength of character that made Washington such a superb leader of men.

However virtually all the remaining characters are written and played as stereotypes. In particular, Nigel Bennett {a fine character actor I must say} is given the thankless task of playing Horatio Gates as a comically sniveling villain.

As far as historical accuracy goes the film displays just about the average level of Hollywood's contempt for historical accuracy.

All in all, quite disappointing for any fan of historical drama.

Interesting little short subject has Welles playing himself during a break from his tortuous shooting of "Othello". While driving thru Dublin on a stormy night, Welles offers a lift to a man with car trouble, who then recounts to him a supernatural experiance he'd had on the same stretch of road years ago.

A very measured short subject {seasoned quite well by the always welcome timbre of Welles' narration} keeps you interested thru the climax of the passenger's flashback which is genuinely chilling.

Listen quickly for Welles inside joke on the trouble with distributors...mechanical and otherwise.

This film will be variously be described in critical summaries as either a historical drama or dramatic tragedy. It is neither. It is a profoundly unsettling ghost story, as luridly horrifying as any classic film of the supernatural. It left me contemplating the permanence of loss that fate can decree for an individual as well as with an image of death more chillingly authentic than anything I have ever experienced in film or print.

Our "ghost" is one Colonel Chabert, a seedy and unpleasant vagrant who materializes in the streets of post Napoleonic Paris to solicit the services of a deliciously clever lawyer to legally prove his identity and therefore claim the legacy of his once considerable estate. 9 years previously, the Colonel had been mistaken for dead after the bitter winter battle of Eylau in 1807. Stripped naked and buried in a mass grave with hundreds of others, Chabert managed to claw his way out of the grave and recovers with the aid of local villagers. Now, after nine years of poverty and semi lucidity {brought about at least partly by the grievous head wound he received which has never fully healed} he has returned to find his wife remarried and his fortune being used to keep her in comfort as well as financing her new husband's political ambitions. It is this bleak situation that has him seeking out a smoothly Machiavellian lawyer who also happens to be his wife's attorney. The brilliant machinations of this lawyer will put the long suffering Chabert within reach of his goal, yet will also raise in his mind and ours a disturbing question: Did Chabert cheat deaths physical grip, only to realize ultimately that it had swallowed his soul, his very being, everything that made Chabert Chabert, and leave him with ethereal memories and an empty husk of a body? I will let the viewers of this film come to their own conclusions about that question.

To make such an emotional impact, most everything about a film must click in just right and this is no exception. The performances are no less than brilliant. Fanny Ardent hits all the marks as Chaberts scheming yet all too human wife. Fabrice Luchini almost steals the show with his searingly precise depiction of the masterly lawyer Derville. As for Chabert, Gerard Depardieu's is a pure manifestation of brilliance. An acting coach could probably break down his performance into instructive segments illustrating how to truly engender character thru subtle juxtapositions of gesture and voice. As an audience though, you never once think about what a great job Depardieu is doing, you are too interested in where he is going to take you next. A strong cry of "Auter!" also to Writer Director Yves Angelo for his sure handed story telling and a "Bravo!" to the exquisitely rich lensing of Bernard Autic.

If you start watching this film and feel my term of "Ghost story" is inaccurate, be patient and wait for the late night first interview between Chabert and Derville. Listen to Chabert describe the sensations of death. And then try to sleep well that night...

Julie and Blake deliver a real bomb {no pun intended}of a World War 1 musical with this sloppily made mega budget mess. Julie's voice is always a joy, but the music here is of the "in one ear, out the other" variety. Hudson shows all the romantic magnetism of a buttered scone and his scenes with Julie hold about as much spark as my 1987 Yugo. The comic relief is painfully unfunny, the flying scenes ho hum {with most of the aircraft and even one of the stars, Jeremy Kemp, rehashed from "The Blue Max"}and the whole experience just makes me glad that I saw this on free TV. Its a long way to Tipperary alright, this movie is closer to Verdun....

This was always a treat to watch when I was growing up. Back then the stiff, shallow characters and often laughably bad special effects didn't matter that much. It was just great to see those lovely Mosquitos take part in some delightfully cartoonish action.

I've aged and so has the movie and I'm not sure which one has aged worse. The live action footage of the Mossy's and Ron Goodwins stirring score are still memorable. However, the plot develops with all the energy of a bowl of Gazpacho, saddled with a starchy love story subplot and thoroughly dull performances all around. Nevertheless, the final attack sequence is still moderately thrilling {and oddly forshadows the trench run scene in "Star Wars"} and with a little fast forwading now and then, can be an enjoyable romp.

Sprawling WW1 aviation epic loosely adapted from Jack Hunter's much grittier novel. Bruno Stachel {Peppard} a "common as dirt" newly commisioned officer in the Imperial German Air Service battles the RAF in the skies over France and his feelings of social inadequecy on the ground. He sets himself on the road to achieving 20 confirmed aerial victories and thus receive the Kaiser's highest award for valor, the Order Pour Le Merite {The Blue Max} Along the way he tangles with a patronizingly snobbish aristocratic wingman {Jeremy Kemp} a morally unyielding CO {Karl Vogler}, a manipulative General {James Mason} and his sultry wife }Ursula Andress.

This film was a staple of my boyhood, being a regular feature of the "10:30 Movie" that I grew up on. As I reflect on it now, I see it for what it is: A well made but bloated and dramatically creaky soap opera that largely wastes a fine cast. To be sure, the aerial choreography and battle scenes still hold up superbly. {Kudos also to Douglas Slocombes superb photography and the majestic music of Jerry Goldsmith.} However, the often laughably bad dialouge deals a mortal blow to the film's dramatic ambitions, reducing many of the characters to little more than cartoons and leaving us completely ambiguous toward Stachel. Which is a shame, since Peppard tries his best to install some genuine human dimension to this charachter. All the actors struggle gamely against the strictures of the limp writing. On the ground-bound plus side, there is the always welcome steamy sex appeal of Ursula Andress, yet this too is comprimised by the now infamousely hilarious "strategic bath-towel deployment" scene.

All in all, still a film to watch once, and then fast forward thru in subsequent viewings to watch the deadly aerial ballets. I highly recommend the Jerry Goldsmith score however. Over 30 years later, it still stands out as one of his best.

A fine idea for a good adventure film is ruined by some inept filmmaking.

The film starts off on the wrong foot with an absolutely inane opening narration that tries to bodyslam the audience with some "Everything you see here is true" hype. Actually, the film is rife with factual errors and composite characters. The old standby of dramatic licence is played upon about as much as your average Hollywood film. Not that it would make any difference if the film was entertaining. But from the opening examples of eye poppingly bad dialogue {"You must go where the Rivers flow"} to Kilmer and Douglas giving the worst performances of their respective careers, this movie is a bust.

Director Stephan Hopkins completely lacks the skill to infuse the characters of ANY of his films with people we care about and GATD is no exception. Kilmer's John Patterson is a stiff necked bore of a boyscout with a highly dubious Irish accent. Douglas looks like he wanted to genetically fuse Dennis Hopper with Quint from "Jaws" and comes across as a pedantic loudmouth peddling the kind of philosophy you normally hear from the town drunk. Neither one had me caring about their fate for an instant and before the film was over I found myself rooting for the lions. Without characters to care about, all the scenes that are supposed to make me jump out of my seat merely incite yawns. The Lions are infused with the old Hollywood standby of near supernatural powers which allows the writers to thinly paint over some painfully obvious plot holes.

Only 2 aspects of this film stand out positively. Veteran Composer Jerry Goldsmith delivers a solid musical score and Cinemantographer Vilmos Zsigmond makes good use of his lensing eye with the expansive natural beauty of Africa.

Aside from that, forget it. Rent "Bwana Devil" instead....

"Hamburger Hill" Director John Irvin gives us one of the most vivid and unsettling views of WW2 combat ever put on film. Does a very good job with a limited budget of giving us a more realistic grunts eye view of combat than most films will ever even attempt.