Salvador (1986)

            “Salvador” is an Oliver Stone (“Platoon”) film. He co-wrote it with Richard Boyle. The main character is based on Boyle, although the movie begins with a disclaimer that the characters have been fictionalized. The movie cost $4.5 million. Stone had trouble getting financial backing and had to take out a second mortgage on his home. You can’t fault his commitment to telling the story, but it was a box office bomb, making only $1.5 million. The movie got good reviews. Not a surprise since critics love movies about journalists. It was nominated for Best Actor (James Woods) and Best Original Screenplay.

            Woods plays veteran journalist Boyle. He is a stereotype of a war movie journalist. His situation is straight out of a country music song. He is unemployed, evicted, his wife and child have left him, and he has been arrested for numerous traffic violations. He hooks up with a down on his luck disc jockey called Doctor Rock (Jim Belushi) whose wife has kicked him out and his dog has died. They decide to drive to El Salvador because it is in the middle of a civil war and it is a good place for adrenaline junkies to get a fix. And they can make some money doing free lance work. In El Salvador, they hook up with photojournalist John Cassady (John Savage) who like all of this type in movies, heads in the direction of gunshots. There is a subplot that has Boyle attempting to save a girlfriend and her daughter.

            Boyle discovers that the United States is supporting the right-wing dictator. Government forces are involved in the murder of nuns and a respected archbishop who had spoken out against the government. Boyle interviews members of the insurgency and they are portrayed as heroic freedom fighters. And the US government is in bed with the bad guys. Did you expect something different from Stone? I do have to point out that Boyle witnesses the rebels killing prisoners. So, although we are supposed to sympathize with the rebels, it is clear they are almost as bad as their opponents. Those opponents are dastardly. They include the sinister latino and the gung-ho, communist hating military adviser.

            “Salvador” is a message movie, but is unengaging. Boyle is an unappealing character and hard to root for. The movie would have been better off concentrating on Cassady. Wood was a good choice for Boyle and he gives his usual slow-burn acting. Belushi provides comic relief. The trio of characters would fit into any war journalism movie. That means we get the cliches of getting a story (or a Pulitzer Prize winning photo) is more important than your family. To get that story or photo, you have to go in harm’s way. Stone stages some good action scenes and the movie finishes strong. Prepare to be depressed.

GRADE  =  C

K-19: The Widowmaker (2002)

 

               “K-19: The Widowmaker” was directed and co-produced by Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty). She and the other producers were the first western civilians to be allowed on the Russian naval base on the Kola Peninsula. The Russians provided members of the actual K-19 to serve as technical advisers, but they quit when they realized how far the script was from reality. Maybe they should have been listened to because the movie was a bomb, making only $67 million with a cost of $90 million. The movie was financed by the National Geographic Society. (It took such a beating, it did not do a comparable movie, “The Way Back”, until eight years later. It was another bomb.) $25 million of the budget was Harrison Ford’s salary. He worked 20 days. Nice work if you can get it. Years later, he told an interviewer that his role was one of his favorites.

               The movie takes place in 1961. The K-19 is a new sub and has not been broken in yet. A practice nuclear launch fails due to faulty equipment. Foreshadowing! Capt. Vostrikov (Ford) believes the boat is not ready, but Khrushchev needs to impress Kennedy with his new super sub. Vostrikov gets the message and proclaims it to be “the finest sub in the world.” The crew begs to differ when the champagne bottle used to christen the ship goes clunk instead of crash. They immediately dub their boat “the Widowmaker”. The dominoes keep falling. The nuclear reactor officer is drunk on duty and replaced by a rookie who proceeds to kiss his girl goodbye AND shows off her picture. Dude! What are the Russian words for “dead meat”. The doctor is killed in an accident. But the boat does go well past crush depth (like every other sub in a sub movie) but maybe … Nah! Speaking of cliches, would you believe the Captain and his exec Polenin (Liam Neeson) butt heads? Polenin and the crew were expecting him to be promoted to command and feel Vostrikov pulled strings to get the command. Sound familiar “Run Silent, Run Deep” fans?  There is a great scene where the sub surfaces through polar ice. Then its back to this boat sucks!  Then the reactor overheats, as well as other problems that you wouldn’t give to a monkey on a rock. I won’t spoil it, but whenever you think you have seen the last problem, you haven’t.

               “K-19” got a raw deal from audiences and critics. Actually, I don’t think you can fault audiences. Who exactly was the movie aimed at? Russians did not want to be reminded of the disaster and Westerners did not care about a Soviet sub that was saved by a valiant crew. Who was the audience supposed to be rooting for? Harrison Ford, of course. The non-actor part of the budget resulted in a authentic nuclear sub experience. The cinematography is outstanding. The interiors are realistic. Not too cramped, not too spacious. The cast is good, but the character arc  of the exec is a bit too redemptive. And the political officer is quite unrealistic (a possible sop for Russian cooperation?). I did not find the accents distracting, but I’m not an accent Nazi. Ford did get some criticism for his lack of one, but what do you expect for $25 million? Overall, the movie is suspenseful, despite the tropes. One of which is the brass asses. However, those crass asses do force Ford to make some interesting decisions that are arguable. One thing is for sure, you’ll be glad you weren’t on that sub. And you’ll feel sorry for the men who were. Unless you are a bitter old Cold Warrior.

               So, what did the survivors dislike about the narrative? Do they not understand that “inspired by actual events” means entertainment trumps history? Apparently not, because all of their complaints resulted in a big fat “so?” from the producers. They were upset with the profanity, drinking, and insubordination of their cinema selves. They disputed the conflict between the captain and the exec. They clearly had not seen any American sub movies. And they didn’t like the mutiny which did not happen in real life. (All of these complaints would have torpedoed (get it?) US Navy cooperation.)

               Besides all that, what else was inaccurate? First let me mention that the main technical adviser was U.S. Navy Capt. Peter Huchthausen (Ret.). Before you decide whether to side with him or the crew, bear in mind he wrote the book that accompanied the release of the movie. The background is accurate. The sub was rushed into development by Khrushchev’s government because he wanted to quickly enter the nuclear sub race. Because of the rush and probably because of Soviet incompetence, the boat had several accidents in production, costing 8 lives. The champagne bottle not breaking was true. But the sub was never called the Widowmaker. (Don’t you hate it when an historically based movie starts out with an untrue title?) After the accident, the crew called it the “Hiroshima”. It was commanded by Nikolai Zateyev whose exec was Vasily Arkhipov (the same Soviet submariner that did not start WWIII during the Cuban Missile Crisis when he refused to launch a nuclear torpedo at an American destroyer that was tailing his sub). I found no evidence that there was any command dysfunction. The sub suffered several problems during sea trials including some not shown in the movie. The hulls rubber coating came off. There was flooding during a crash dive to maximum depth. There was flooding due to cooks clogging the galley’s waste system. I found no evidence of the sub surfacing through the ice cap.

               The accident was pretty accurately depicted. There was a communications breakdown. The film does a great job highlighting the courage of the crew and the leadership of the captain. They did have to jury-rig a new coolant system and the engineering group did expose themselves to lethal levels of radiation. Even after that was solved, the ventilation system sent radiation throughout the ship resulting in 14 deaths over the next two years. The nuclear missiles were not in danger of exploding. There was no mutiny, but Zateyev did have most of the sidearms thrown over board to discourage the possibility. Zateyev did make the decision to sail to link up with some diesel-powered subs. He did encounter an American destroyer that offered help which was refused. There was no mooning of a helicopter. In conclusion, “K-19” suffers from the sin of enhancement for entertainment value, but that can be partly excused as a way to gin up sympathy for the crew. Sympathy they deserved.

 

GRADE =  B- 

 

13 Assassins (1963)

 

            My favorite samurai movie is “13 Assassins” (2010), so I was interested in how it compares to the original which came out in 1963. I am glad I saw the remake first because it is easier to follow the plot of the original, which tends to brush over key plot points. Both movies are about an evil warlord who is so despicable that the 13 are sent to assassinate him.

            The 1963 version starts similarly with Matsudaira killing a family. The movie is not as graphic as the remake, of course. But it does a decent job convincing you that Matsudaira is evil. The film goes through the recruitment process. There is less coverage of the thirteen, but some of the scenes are reimagined in the remake. For instance, Sahara joins for the money. Shin mentions booze and girls. Just mentions. Hanbei visits, but he has a vague conversation with Shinzaemon. It is not as clear that the two are rivals. The journey to the town is uneventful and they don’t meet a mystical hunter who provides comic relief. The fortifying of the village is brief. You get the mandatory practicing scene common in movies like this. The fight for the village is a long set piece with plenty of stabbing and slicing. The duels are similar, but not as well choreographed. Some of the dueling is smile-inducing. The ending is less satisfying.

            1963 may be a classic, but in no way is it better than the remake. The characters are not fleshed out. It needed to be longer. It clocks in at 125 minutes which is not significantly shorter than 2010’s 141, but the newer version is deeper and more comprehensive. The final battle is 26 minutes and the fighting is decent action. However, not nearly as scintillating and the deaths are bloodless, which is unavoidable in a 1960s film. The villain is average and certainly is not loathsome like in the newer film. The acting is decent and does not include the kind of scene-chewing associated with some Japanese films from that era. There are no melodramatic deaths.

            Viewing these two films is a good way to see the differences between a 20^th Century samurai movie and a 21^st Century one. The one word that best characterizes the newer movies is bigger. The villain is more dastardly, the battle is more graphic, the opposition is larger (so there are more deaths), and the effects are grander. The audiences changed and the movies reflect that. This is the reason 1963 is tame in comparison to 2010. Sometimes the remakes go overboard and make a mockery of the original, but not in this case. Although 1963 is a good movie, 2010 greatly improves on it. And isn’t that what we want in our remakes? Take the original screenplay and improve it. Should be easy, but it doesn’t always come out better. Just look at the terrible recent “All Quiet on the Western Front” which is vastly inferior to the 1930 version.

 

GRADE  =  B-

 

Flying Tigers (1943)

 

 

               “Flying Tigers” was John Wayne’s first war film.  As is well known, Wayne did not serve in the military in WWII.  This movie is part of the argument that he better served his country by making “flagwaving” films like this one.  Since it is unlikely that the uniformed Wayne would have killed as many Japanese in reality as compared to the celluloid hero, let’s concede the argument.  The fact that the movie was made in 1943 means that there were technical constraints on the effects and which impacted a script with the requisite propaganda themes.  The movie is meant to be a tribute to the American Volunteer Group (popularly known as the “Flying Tigers”) and leads off with a testimonial by Chiang Kai-shek.  The plot is basically the story of the leader of the unit (Wayne as Jim Gordon) and a hot shot jerk named Woody (John Carroll).  Gordon is the empathetic head pilot who takes in black sheep pilots to shoot down Japanese planes for the saintly (but hickish) Chinese people.  Woody is a wolf who makes no secret that he is in it just for the bounty money given for each kill.  He says “get out your checkbook, General” when he shoots down a Zero.  There is a love triangle involving a nurse named Brook (Anna Lee).  Woody wears out his charming roguishness when he contributes to the downing and subsequent strafing while parachuting death of the beloved exec “Hap” (Phil Kelly).  He does get a chance to redeem himself at the end and the love triangle conundrum is solved via subtraction.

               “Flying Tigers” was a big hit in a country that was craving Japanese ass-kicking.  People had heard of the famous unit already, but if they were hoping for a history lesson they were disappointed.  None of the characters were based on real people.  The only thing the movie gets right is the fact that the pilots were paid a bounty for each kill.  The biggest boner is having the unit earning those bounties before Pearl Harbor.  In reality, the AVG did not go into action until after Pearl Harbor.  The other departure from reality is in the air combat depicted in the movie.  That can partly be blamed on the available technology.  The effects make heavy use of models (P-40 Warhawks) and footage (including Japanese newsreels to show the effects of bombings).  Although the movie was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Effects, it looks decidedly quaint.  There are three ways to go in dogfight movies:  the use of models, the use of actual planes to reenact, and the use of CGI.  The use of models can be pulled off if you are making “Star Wars”, but in this case it just looks like models.  Plus models pre-Star Wars often defy the realities of physics and look foolish doing so.  “Flying Tigers” also falls into the Old School of showing dogfights via cockpit shots and machine guns blazing.  Any plane shot at goes down and usually with the bullet ridden body of the pilot on board (unless you want to reenact the dastardly strafing of an American pilot early in the war).

               “Flying Tigers” is patriotic bull shit, but it is not painful to watch.  The acting is good.  Wayne is Wayne, as usual.  Carroll gets the meaty role and digs his teeth into it.  The character is not two-dimensional and although quite a cad, he has some redeeming qualities.  Anna Lee is lovely and can actually act a bit (usually not a requirement in movies like this).  The plot is very predictable, but what do you expect from a 1943 movie?  I could say the same for the dogfighting scenes, but they were done much better by movies pre-1940s.

 

GRADE  =  C