because you can't have too much entertainment... December 2003

Have Movie Star, Will Travel

Reviewed: The Last Samurai Directed by: Edward Zwick Starring: Tom Cruise and Ken Watanabe Master & Commander Directed by: Peter Weir Starring: Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany

It's Oscar season. So out come the big stars, period costumes, exotic locales, and earnestly thematic narratives. Master and Commander is finding its sea legs at the box office, indicating it isn't out of the race just yet. And The Last Samurai is probably opening to huge crowds even as I type, emerging as a major competitor. Conventional wisdom has it that only so many battle fatigued period epics can be shortlisted for the Best Picture Oscar. Further theorizing indicates that perhaps these two manly spectaculars are essentially fighting for the same slot in the lineup. If so, may the best film win.

Which is that, you ask? Read on.

The Last Samurai
(this review contains spoilers which I normally avoid -be warned)
I worry for Edward Zwick. He's the sort of creative talent I'd like to sit down with for a cup of tea, to dish out sage career advice. I first heard his name in the mid-80s, in connection with the hit multiple Emmy'ed and innovative television series, thirtysomething. But he'd been a television force as early as the the late 70s with the Emmy nominated series Family. Within the next several years he became my undisputed hero of network television. For twenty years he and his creative partner Marshall Herskovitz consistently created the best series that network television has greenlighted.

After nailing the self-involved/instropective yuppie mindset of thirtysomethings in the 80s, he breathed impossibly fresh life back into the well worn teen-age high school drama with the extraordinary and shortlived My So Called Life in the 90s. Once that remarkable series ended, Zwick demonstrated a fine grasp of 20something relationships with the abruptly cancelled Relativity (too abrupt in fact to see what it might have really become). And finally, Zwick and his creative team delivered the finest television art in the aughts (apart from Buffy) with a finely nuanced look at blended families and 40somethings in the enormously moving Once & Again. Indeed, all of his series have been notable endeavors. But somehow, with film, Zwick repeatedly falls short. Within the context of a larger canvas, he just isn't playing to his strengths.

And The Last Samurai is inarguably painted on a large canvas. The film's plotline springs from a military man's attempt to escape his own memories of the Native American holocaust in the United States. He tries to do this through drink and then, when the opportunity arrives, by leaving the country altogether. Tom Cruise plays Captain Nathan Algren, the military man in question. He is hired by a certain pro-Western faction within the emperor of Japan's political council to train the Japanese soldiers in modern warfare. For reasons never fully detailed, his former colleague and current enemy, Colonel Bagley (he's the villain of the piece so he's naturally played by Tony Goldwyn) suggests him for the job and joins him to lead the armies. The Samurais of Japan oppose this sort of thing in some undefined way (the film is very sketchy on details -preferring broad strokes). This band of warriors represent the old ways, American influence then defines the modern. Captain Algren is quickly captured and learns to love the samurai and their ways. The central conflict emerges as one of 'to modernize or not to modernize' It's a great and always timely subject matter, but the script and performance fall far short of knowing what to do with it.

It's strange that a filmmaker as capable of modulating emotional ambiguities as Zwick can get so tripped up when dealing with the large abstracts of politics and history. But tripped up he gets. Rather than embracing the complex factions and motivations present in the conflict, one gets a sense that the director, star, and screenplay are continually working in tandem to blacken or bleach the numerous gray areas they find along their way. The film rapidly deteriorates in its second half. The film's emotional thrust, complete with the requisite narration to help you follow the themes, is clearly to position the Samurais and the old ways as indigenous, honorable, and good. And by contrast, the outside influence, America, and its modern weapons are presented as foreign, dishonorable, and bad. The potentially fascinating conflict is reduced to good vs. evil. That's a great disservice to a modern American audience already living in a culture that's continually denying the imperialistic nature of their country and the need in a shrinking world for all countries to move forward together. Old vs. New, West vs. East are too simplistic as responses to historical crisises.

The titular character initially appears to be Katsumoto, who is played with great charisma by Japanese star Ken Watanabe. As the film progresses and grows ever sillier, the plot convolutions all aim to make Tom Cruise ever more heroic in the audiences' eyes. They mostly succeed. This story has been made with great earnestness by a top notch production team. Reknowned director of photography John Toll (The Thin Red Line) offers potent imagery to soak in as the saga unfolds. But this, too, is part of the problem. It's hard not to be lost in Cruise's well tended locks of hair, or marvel at his iconic face when it's this well lit and caressed by the camera. Despite the fact that the film's messages seem to be in direct conflict with the further iconization of America and the West as the "ideal."

There is a moment late in the film that perfectly crystallizes everything that's gone awry with this film. There has been a horrific slaughter on the battlefield as the hundreds of remaining samurais have gone to their honorable deaths under machine gun fire from the American led Japanese forces. The last surviving samurais, Katsumoto and his protegé Captain Algren, have been defeated and Katsumoto, obeying his samurai code, helps himself along to the afterlife with his own sword. The Japanese soldiers react in horror to the slaughter they've performed in the name of progress for their country as they look onto the battlefield at their very history taking its last breath (yes, it's that kind of underlined drama). The soldiers collectively bow down to Katsumoto who is already dead. The problem is that visually this reads all wrong. There in the battlefield is the only survivor, the American movie star. Miraculously unharmed by volleys of machine gun rounds, arrows, swords, explosions, and anything they could ever throw at him. And still as beautiful as ever. Visually the film than becomes a worshipful genuflection to that American Ideal, Mr. Movie Star himself, Tom Cruise.

In that cumulative moment, this epic's internal confusion rises to the surface. It's a political Jekyll and Hyde act. On the one hand the film asks you to cheer on the death of imperialistic Americans (as played by Tony Goldwyn) who seek to westernize everything. On the other it asks you to worship imperialistic Americans (Cruise) who appropriate other cultures and help the natives to value themselves. The white man as savior to savages is an old imperialistic and racist concept and it's dusted off here in the service of a film that ostensibly asks you to despise that very notion. So in the end, The Last Samurai is either a deeply subversive film or a terriby misguided one. The evidence tilts toward the latter, I'm afraid. There's a very real and perhaps valuable argument to be made on behalf of the dangers of imperialism. But this film is unable to make it. Its distasteful blend of American hero worship and anti-westernization message leaves a sour taste in the mouth. Essentially the film is cheating on itself. Once the surface pleasures of this handsome film pass, it's rather hard to stomach. But arriving at this conclusion while watching this film was not without its peculiar fascination. C-

Though the well meaning but unfortunate Samurai may shakily make it to Oscar's embrace on audience love alone, there's a far sturdier epic waiting in the wings should it falter...

Master & Commander

Master and Commander also traffics in political conflicts. But in this shipboard adventure, set during the Napoleonic war, the political conflict doesn't seem to be part of the reason for the film's very existence. So, consequently, any political messages are muted or irrelevant in service of the story. This proves to be such a solid, old fashioned motion-picture that viewed side by side with other Oscar hopefuls it appears stately and reserved. The other films start seeming unappetizingly histrionic in their efforts to woo. Whether or not that's a good thing is, of course, entirely a matter of taste .

So then, I speak from taste. For me, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World was a breath of fresh air in a year full of films that always felt like they were trying too hard to impress. By contrast, this high seas epic feels confident and leisurely and therefore, impresses. Even if only in a small, inconsequential way.

There isn't a lot of meat to the story, in fact. The adapted screenplay which combines two books in the long series about the adventures of Captain Jack Aubrey (Russell Crowe) does so rather seamlessly... but it still feels as if the adventure is merely window dressing for the investigation of life aboard a vessel of war and the personal relationships aboard Aubrey's ship, the "HMS Surprise".

Unlike Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai, Russell Crowe seems to have left his celebrity baggage/persona behind with his appearance in the film. His quiet, stubbornly authoritative intensity as Captain Jack Aubrey feels just right and appropriately lived in. He managed to make me forget my distaste for his public antics. I left the theater reminded me of why I'd thought him such a fine actor when I first saw LA Confidential and sought out, consequently, The Sum of Us and Proof for further investigation of his abilities.

Kudos go also to Paul Bettany, who matches Crowe line for line, again demonstrating terrific chemistry with the controversial star. (Whatever one can say about his unfortunate role in A Beautiful Mind, he acquitted himself well within.) In a lesser film, with a lesser cast (even the kids offer thoroughly involving performances), Bettany's supporting work would be all the buzz and his star would be significantly rising. But such is the happy fate for anyone who makes a movie that's just fine across the board: They blend in. If everyone's on top of their game it's hard to stand out. The only element that nearly steals the show is the amazing production design. The true star of the film is refreshingly not Russell Crowe but the "Surprise" herself. The production design and art direction by William Sandell, Bruce Crone, and Mark W Mansbridge is the true star of the show. It fully submerges you into the world of the film.

It's too bad than that all of this effort is in service of a storyline that is nothing earthshaking or even particularly memorable. The film left me more satisfied than ecstatic but it's the kind of grand, big budget adventure that studios should probably make more of. Involving, well realized, and not condescending to one's basic intelligence. These are good traits for a motion picture to display and they're unfortunately in rather short supply. B

-Nathaniel

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