Reviews (1,675)

  • A great little doc from 2007 w/an unwieldy title. Billy Mitchell is the world champ (a dubious honor) in classic arcade games w/a high score on Donkey Kong (the infamous game which also introduced Mario). Enter Steve Wiebe, a family man w/kids who also has a knack for the game, even playing on his own arcade unit in his garage, who has aspirations for the throne. Setting out to break Mitchell's record, Wiebe goes down to an infamous arcade & proceeds to get head turning high scores in full view of witnesses & the public at large. Mitchell however believes he's the Bobby Fischer of the Atari age so he stays away from the game den & keeps tabs on Wiebe's progress via phone calls where his loyal yes men keep him informed. When Wiebe achieves a rare game freeze (the game's avatar spins in inactivity when the game's memory is taxed), Mitchell sends a minion (an elderly woman) to the site w/a videotape purported to be a high score (which buries Wiebe's tally) feeding the frenzy for both titans to meet in a head to head competition. As the Guinness people (the world record keepers) give a deadline for Wiebe to top Mitchell's taped claim, the stage is set for a fraught encounter, right? Maybe. Not being a hardcore gamer but knowing enough to distinguish between Galaxina & Galaga, this pseudo grudge match is immensely watchable even though after a while you'd wish these grown-ups would get a life.
  • A Netflix original currently streaming starring Oscar nominee Bill Nighy & Top Boy's Micheal Ward. During a chance encounter Nighy, a volunteer soccer coach, runs into Ward at a park where he's snatched a ball from some soccerball kicking kids to strut his stuff. What Ward doesn't know is that Nighy coaches a British team filled w/homeless men which are competing in a world tournament (taking place in Italy) & Nighy feels Ward desperately fits the bill. At first reticent to be included w/the downfallen men, Ward soon steps up to the plate & becomes a captain of sorts bringing his fellow players game (& lives to be honest) up to snuff which culminates when the favored South African team comes to play (a team where he already volunteered his time to assist) & they're down a man, causing him to step in as a substitute. Based on a real yearly contest (who knew?) the film has an 'easy going, you know where this is going to end up' vibe about it which will pluck the apropos heartstrings to great affect w/only the most miserly of curmudgeons dismissing the familiar tract out of hand. Also starring Valeria Golino as the Italian host rep who engages Nighy.
  • Peter Greenaway's (The Pillow Book/Prospero's Books) 1987 treatise on a talented architect who's lost his way creatively & emotionally. Played by the late, great Brian Dennehy (in probably his only foray into art film) as an ugly American in Italy on assignment in a retrospective of his hero Etienne-Louis Boullée. Once there however it becomes a battle of wills & ideologies when he butts heads w/the organizers of the presentation. His wife, played by Chloe Webb, also feels the brunt of his constant battles (& decides to keep her pregnancy to herself) while she piques the interest of a suitor, played by Lambert Wilson. Dennehy decides to shack up w/another woman but what really fells Dennehy is a constant pain in his stomach (the titular belly) which for all he does (changing his diet, seeing specialists, etc.), the ache remains. The pain affects his demeanor whereby he punches first whenever a verbal disagreement is brought to his attention & even postcards he sends to a friend (I have to hand it to Dennehy, he had wonderful penmanship!) are not answered at any point in the story leading to the eventual empty solace of a man who lets his demons get the best of him. Being an early Greenaway film, his usual artistic concerns were in its infancy & his standing as an filmmaker wouldn't be noticed until The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover 2 years later would cause a deserved stir but here (the print on TCM was horrible) I can only glean my reaction from the version I saw w/the plotline very familiar & other than having an actor like Dennehy cast in an unorthodox role (he would play Willy Loman in a lauded stage version of Death of a Salesman in the last few years of his life) the narrative comes off as passe & past its prime.
  • An early Akira Kurasawa (Ikuru/Ran) feature from 1946. A group of like minded students during 1930's Japan see the world as idealists even thought the specter of fascism will rear its head in a few years time. Focusing on the daughter, played by Setsuko Hara (I must have an unspoken thing for her since this is the 4th film of hers I've seen in the last 2 weeks), of a professor who goes from being a student body darling to a disgraced outsider (when the power dynamic changes in the country) but Hara plows forward, romancing & eventually marrying one of her fellow classmates who shares her philosophy even when the government scoops him up (tragically where he dies in custody). Retreating back to her parents home, Hara decides to go live w/her in-laws (who have been labeled as spies) & live her days (even getting sick) as a laborer. A lot of food for thought to be sure but Hara's mercurial performance (which screams bipolar!) doesn't engender much audience sympathy but when her battle becomes an inner one, she finally comes to the fore. Also starring Takashi Shimura (one of Kurasawa's stock players) who shows up as a police enforcer.
  • A by the book actioner (I mean look at the poster, photoshop anyone?) directed by Michael Apted (Coal Miner's Daughter/Nell) that has a game Oscar winning/nominated cast (I still don't know what Legolas is doing in this) which includes aforementioned Orlando Bloom & Oscar winner Michael Douglas. Noomi Rapace is a CIA operative being used by her agency & MI6 to thwart an impending terrorist attack w/the usual double crosses & uninspired gunfights along the way to spice up the business on display. A similarly plotted Idris Elba flick from a few years back named The Take did it a whole lot better. Try that one instead.
  • A current release in theaters starring Oscar nominees Ryan Gosling & Emily Blunt in this big screen adaptation of the famous 80's show which featured Lee Majors as a professional stuntman who moonlights as a bounty hunter. Playing out as an origin story finds Gosling's stuntman coming out of a year long rehab (after he broke his back in a fall) to get back on set at the behest of a cutthroat agent, Ted Lasso's Hannah Waddington, to double for the missing star, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, until Gosling can find him. Adding fuel to his particular fire is Gosling's reunion w/his currently off again gal, Blunt, who is directing this feature (at the film's onset she was a production coordinator) Down Under where Gosling upon discovering a corpse in a hotel room rightfully finds himself in over his head as the case plays out. An unabashed tribute to stuntmen & directed by one time stunter David Leitch who has parlayed his former career to become a premiere action director (Atomic Blonde/Deadpool 2/Bullet Train) rightfully delivers the goods but does himself no favors by having a gag reel at the film's end showing the audience everything you just watched is fake which other than the very funny rebuilding of a fractious love affair which plays front & center, the explosive ballet on display falls by the wayside. Also starring Teresa Palmer as Johnson's co-star in the production, Winston Duke, from the Black Panther series, plays another stuntman while recent Oscar nominee, Stephanie Hsu, plays an assistant.
  • A Netflix original, currently streaming, about a forgotten, in some circles, black woman who ran for president during the early 1970's. Oscar winner Regina King plays Shirley Chisolm who became the first black woman to be elected representative to Congress who due to some bureaucracy (she didn't get to work on the committees she wanted due to her freshman status) was advised to 'go for it' & run for president against Nixon even though fellow Democratic nominee, George Wallace, played W. Earl Brown, an unapologetic racist, was doing better in the polls. Buoyed by the support of her husband, Michael Cherrie & her advisors which include the late, great Lance Reddick, Oscar nominee Terrence Howard, Brian Stokes Mitchell & Oscar nominee Lucas Hedges, the race is on or is it as King's presence in the electorate is vague at best which aligned w/her efforts to not bother campaigning in areas which she feels are a long shot makes her the slimmest of also ran's but then Brown is the victim of an assassination attempt which signals to King a chance may be had w/the film's last third focusing on the eve of the Democratic Convention where pledges for the possible nominee come to the fore. King is great here (don't be surprised if she caps another Emmy win come this time next year) as even in the most vulnerable moments, her strength is evident further buoyed a stellar supporting cast that writer/director & Oscar winner, John Ridley (he won for his script for 12 Years a Slave), gets great mileage from.
  • A 2024 Netflix original currently streaming about the bombshell get of an interview by a news organization, Newsnight, getting a tip that Prince Andrew, Rufus Sewell, was a close friend of Jeffrey Epstein (since the opening salvo has a paparazzi snapping a photo of them together walking in New York). Focusing on a reporter for the scandal page, Doctor Who's Billie Piper, trying to get her ducks in a row while the lead anchor, played by The X-Files' Gillian Anderson, also preps for the interview, especially in lieu of Epstein's suicide, while Sewell's advisor, Keeley Hawes, preps him for the impending taping. The closest thing I can equate this presentation w/is Ron Howard's Frost/Nixon from 2008 but from across the pond which as Sewell flounders in his rationalizations to continue his relationship w/Epstein after some earlier accusations of sex trafficking came to light makes him more buffoon than royal elder statesman eliciting gasps from the viewing public makes for a nice investigative yarn American audiences may not know too intimately but will know tangentially. Romola Garai shows up as the station's manager.
  • A Bollywood actioner from 2022 streaming on Netflix. During the British rule of India, a contingent of rebel factions are starting to threaten that rule w/a jungle leader, played by N. T. Rama Rao Jr, emerging as the head guy in charge (I wonder why, was it the scene where he corrals a tiger?). Things come to a head when his sister is taken away by the ruling magistrate, Ray Stevenson, since she was quite prodigious in applying henna tattoos on his wife's (played by Alison Doody from Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade) hands. Enter Ram Charan, an ambitious member of the British forces who is guaranteed a leadership position if he catches Rao Jr. Which becomes a bit of a thriller since when he does meet him, as they both save a child from falling debris from a bridge, they bond but they don't know they're actually on opposite sides of the impending violence so when it comes, we get Charan's backstory & his true motives, setting up the extended conflict which wraps up the narrative. Now a warning, if you've never indulged in a Bollywood film then the sheer gamut of emotions that you'll go through will snap the neck of most casual viewers but if you're up for it then you'll get the closest thing to a visual smorgasbord as this film has action, adventure, horror & a song number or two w/the all the players gleefully serving up this mishmash w/a smile on their collective faces or gallons of tears wiped from anguished cheeks.
  • From last year comes this off kilter romance cum horror flick starring Coda/Locke & Key's Emilia Jones. Jones is at college working at a movie theater which specializes in retro fare. One day one of her customers, Nicholas Braun, buys a peculiar combo of concessions to eat which prompts a breezy reflect from Jones. Wondering aloud to her roomie, Geraldine Viswanathan, that she may be interested spurs some pushback but date they do even though some signposts are clear & evident that Braun may not be the guy she envisioned culminating in a sex bout which would have anyone else racing to the hills. Jones does come to her senses & w/Viswanathan's brusque help breaks up w/him which spawns a fuselage of texts as to why. Thinking there's something off about the whole situation prompts Jones to stay on the defensive which culminates in a showdown in his home that when broken down makes both sides logical in their findings. Never really buying into Jones fascination w/Braun (whether because she's lonely or went through a bitter break-up w/her ex who we meet on a trip home who's now asexual) was a big hinderance into an 'in' to Jones' character making the rest of the narrative fall apart although Jones is on her way to being an actress to watch.
  • A current cult film to be currently in release starring Bill Skarsgard & Jessica Rothe. Skarsgard has grown up mute & will not speak stemming from growing up in a totalitarian futuristic wasteland where he lost his sister. Running into various colorful types which includes Warrior's Andrew Koji, District 9's Sharlto Copley & the original Jean Grey herself, Famke Janssen, the film lurches from one bloodstained colorful set piece to the next which from the opening bass thumping salvos wore me out as I tried in vain to stay awake during this sensory malarkey overload. Also starring Brett Gelman from Stranger Things, Michelle Dockery from Downton Abbey & Yayan Ruhian from the Raid series wasted here w/his chopsocky chops.
  • A timely documentary from 2022 (& also the Oscar winner from that year) about Russian dissident & rival to Putin's presidency, Alexei Navalny. Following the events of his poisoning discovered in a Russian flight which was diverted to a hospital, the Navalny camp fought & won to have him ferried to Germany where recuperating, the drug Novichok (or at least the remnants of it) were discovered. Hooking up w/a Russian journalist, Christo Grozev, the pair along w/Navalny's producer, track the players in the poisoning scheme & even further calling the phone numbers which were unearthed where a dunderheaded chemist spills the beans on the entire scheme. Bookended by Navalny's return to Mother Russia as the seconds tick down before the plane lands & we witness what'll happen next makes this a doc feel like a double thriller even though recent news of Navalny's passing makes the ending a surety. Considering the ever changing nature of history & our place in it, it's a wonder this story ever got out & to the exacting details in which it did which makes Navalny's legacy, which hopefully the Russians people will continue to foster & fight the good fight.
  • An engaging Western from 1949. Starting off in the present day (the late 1940's), we have the grandson, William Prince, of a gold prospector, Glenn Ford, searching for the fabled entry to his grandad's mine but instead of finding it he comes across a dead body of another man who also was in search of the elusive treasure. Being picked up by the authorities, Prince regales & is regaled on the history Ford had w/the mine (where we see Ford finds it & loots the treasure after killing his companion, played by stalwart character actor, Edgar Buchanan). Going back to town to cash in his ill gotten gains, Ford draws the attention of a scheming bakery owner, Ida Lupino, who hopes to gain some of Ford's gold even using her estranged lout of a hubby, Gig Young, to run interference. Ford falls under her spell but then overhears the truth (from an advantageous window outside the bakery) setting up the finale, in the past, as Ford gets his revenge. Coming out on the heels of the seminal Treasure of the Sierra Madre the year before, another tale of greed, this film's tricksy structure makes it a contender for the former's throne while being a hoot of a yarn of the first order w/Ford giving a great perf as the villain the audience still roots for.
  • Akira Kurasawa's (Ikuru/Red Beard) 1955 paean to the perils of the Atomic Age. Kurasawa's go to actor Toshiro Mifune, again stars as an old man who after living through the trauma of the nuclear bomb attacks by the US (Hiroshima & Nagasaki), now fears it's going to happen again so he intends to move his brood abroad (he may buy land in Brazil) but his family is not having any of it so they enlist a board of arbitrators, one of which is Takashi Shimura, a dentist, to intervene so what follows is a back & forth of one man's (& probably Japan as a nation) rationalization of his crippling doubts which may cost him his own sanity. One could argue the extremes Mifune goes through may border on the maniacal but being a nation that's never faced that kind of nuclear terror what do we know? Another marvelous facet to Mifune's performance is how well suited he was at playing an old man (he was 35 at the time playing a man double his age) using minimal make-up & a hunch to his gait.
  • From earlier this year comes a biopic on Bob Marley, the world's most renowned reggae artist who left us too soon in 1981. Essayed by Kinsley Ben-Adir (the villain of Secret Invasion) & taking place during a 3 or so year period after there was an attempt on his life at his Jamaican compound where he & some others were shot, Ben-Adir relocates to England to gather his thoughts as he preps to record his seminal recording of "Exodus". Back home the violence arose from the political race which was taking place & since Ben-Adir eschewed matters of state, declining to get involved, it opened him up to the drive-by but finding a safe space in Blighty, Ben-Adir recenters himself, preps the album & soon finds fans on the international circuit (we glimpse someone obviously aping Mick Jagger posing w/Ben-Adir for a photo) but while its intimated he wasn't the most loyal of spouses which wife Rita, played by Lashana Lynch, goes w/the flow until she doesn't & his manager, Anthony Welsh, was caught milking an African concert venue for more cash, Ben-Adir decides to return home to perform a restorative concert for peace to quell the masses which proved to be a rousing success. Blessed & shepherded by the Marley family, you can feel the film wanting to dig deeper into the man but since the focus is limited to a chapter of a many layered book, we deal w/what we got letting the music weave in & out of the narrative providing the best sounding soundtrack ever w/o even trying. If you want a deeper delve into the man, watch Kevin McDonald's titular 2012 doc to quench that particular thirst. Also starring Michael Gandolfini (James' son) playing a record exec & Top Boy's Micheal Ward as one Marley's assassins.
  • The 1999 sequel to 1995's Once Were Warriors about the domestic drama revolving a Maori family in New Zealand. Taking place a few years after the events of the first film we find the patriarch, Temuera Morrison, still besotted at his local watering hole when word comes down his eldest, Julian Arahanga (reprising his role but wasted here!) is killed during a gang hit. Already on the outs w/his family (his wife, Rena Owen, also wasted, has divorced him), he decides to not attend the funeral where another of his sons vows revenge & joins a rival gang to find out what happened. Morrison meanwhile, still nursing his old demons, has hit his occasional girlfriend & is tossed to the proverbial curb but a pair of clean living brothers take him under his wing (& give him a job) so when his son shows up, he decides to help. Based on a novel by Alan Duff (much like the predecessor), here Duff does scripting duties which do the story no favors (an author wants to get every nook & cranny into his story as he can) as Morrison's road to redemption takes a backseat to his son's story-line which smacks of an A-Team episode making whatever strides Morrison makes get lost in translation.
  • A 1949 film noir starring Ida Lupino. In what amounts to a trial run for Julia Roberts 1991 vehicle Sleeping w/the Enemy, Lupino is the abused wife on the run from her heel of a husband, Stephen McNally, who believes Lupino is still alive even though it's believed she took her own life when her car went off a cliff. During one of her stops in a small town she befriends an itchy footed cashier at a pharmacy, Howard Duff, who takes a fancy to her so much so he follows her when she boards a bus out of town & reaching a new berg they disembark & spend the day together even getting involved in a large convention in the same area. Seeing the reward for Lupino's return in a newspaper, Duff decides to call McNally (he believes Lupino's disturbed behavior is a result of hysterics) letting him know he's found her which pleases McNally since he does want to kill her off, along w/the help of his equally bent side piece, Peggy Dow, so he can gain control of her company setting up the last third in a warehouse where Duff comes to the rescue. If you've seen Enemy than you know the ebb & flow of the yarn but seeing how effective the bare bones original played out makes a good argument for less is more. Fun fact, thanks to Eddie Muller from Noir Alley for the edification, director Michael Gordon is Joseph Gordon-Levitt's granddad.
  • A 2021 comedy which could be described as Tron meets Wreck-it-Ralph has Ryan Reynolds as a rosy eyed optimist who is an avatar in an interactive videogame who suddenly gains awareness. Enter the object of his affection, played by Killing Eve's Jodie Comer, who has an agenda of her own as she tries to find the gamecode, currently being stashed away by the company man, Taika Waititi, so she can publish for free to the public at large. In the real world, Comer, now playing her user, & her on-again & off-again game programmer boyfriend, Stranger Things' Joe Keery, both scramble to get this information out before Waititi can unleash a sequel to the masses w/inherent bugs & all. Reynolds now the talk of the web since his newfound sobriety has made him popular, partners w/Comer to save the day all the while living his avatar life to its full potential. Maybe using a real game (Sims, Fortnight?) would've gotten me more in tune here but being such a standard take on an open world environment peppered w/Reynolds' typical motormouth quippy delivery left me feeling kind of non-plussed as the CG & over-caffeinated story-line plumb tuckered me out.
  • A 1955 Spanish language film (from Spain) which finds a well to do couple (Albert Closas & Lucia Bose) hitting a bicyclist on the road one night & decide to flee from the scene of the crime. Once back in their respective corners (Bose is married & stepping out w/Closas) they both descend into their own moral quandaries w/Closas guilt ridden (heading to the victim's neighborhood to find out about the man) while Bose is blasé about the whole thing even though a hanger-on in her social circle insinuates he knows what happened. Closas is inconsolable however even suggesting towards the film's end to turn themselves over to the authorities which doesn't end well for him. Getting much mileage from guilt, director Juan Antonio Bardem (who turns out to be an uncle to Oscar winner Javier Bardem) milks the moody lighting for all its worth w/winning performances across the board especially Bose who is perfect as the femme fatale.
  • Buster Keaton's 1928 silent comedy. Trying to eke out a living in the titular profession, finds Keaton at first meeting a secretary, Marceline Day, who he quickly becomes infatuated with so much so he gets into debt buying a camera set up which takes him a bit to get a grasp of (evidenced when he hears about a fire & ends up hitching a ride w/a random firetruck back to its station). The relationship between Keaton & Day starts moving in fits & starts w/a date at a public pool more event filled for Keaton (losing his oversized suit in the pool) but when Keaton finds himself during a riot in Chinatown, he's lucky enough to be in the midst w/his camera & a former organ-grinding monkey (?) to catch the fracas but when he shows up at Day's office (she works for a news concern) to sell his wares, it turns out he never loaded a film magazine in the first place or did he? Keaton rightly in some circles gives Chaplin a run for his money w/this whimsical take on the burgeoning profession which at this point must've been brand new w/Keaton's deadpan visage enough to sell the comedy w/out any physical antics to embellish any given scene makes this a winner.
  • Guy Ritchie's latest (Lock, Stock & 2 Smoking Barrels/Snatch) is brilliant homage to Leone-esque WWII yarn which coincidentally is based on some real-life people currently in cinemas. Doing the dirty jobs no one will do (& for which England would not even acknowledge if caught) a merry band of assassins & monkey wrenchers led by Henry Cavill, Alan Ritchson, Henry Golding, Alex Pettyfer & Hero Fiennes Tiffin who are soon joined by fixers Eiza Gonzalez & Babs Olunsanmokun to thwart the German U boat effort by destroying some of their supply ships moored near a Spanish isle run by a German businessman Til Schweiger, loyal to the Reich & a Spanish commandant, Henrique Zaga. Having their plan down pat & w/all the players in position the siege is on but when at the last minute they find out the ship's have been recently been retrofitted w/extra metal plating making demolition a nonstarter makes the demo mission a heist which is gleefully over the top (Ritchson gets his Reacher on w/all comers sometimes w/a thrusting knife) w/a score which sounds like Morricone in his heyday makes this a glorious popcorn time to be had at the theaters. Also starring nominal British American Cary Elwes as the team's contact in the military, Rory Kinnear essaying Churchill & Freddie Fox (late of Apple +'s Slow Horses & himself son of actor Edward Fox) portrays Ian Fleming who is said to have patterned James Bond after some of the team members.
  • Oscar nominee Dev Patel ventures behind the camera (also starring & co-writing) this India set revenge yarn. Coming from meager straits, Patel has had to make his way to the big bad city (since we see in flashback, he was a country bumpkin at heart) now a masked fighter who's not making a much of a dent on the fighting circuit but when he comes in contact w/a lawman, Sikander Kher, who torched his village & raped/killed his mum, he decides to put an elaborate plan in motion (getting in good w/a woman club owner, Ashwini Kalsekar, who he returns a purse back after we see a montage of different hands the purse went through ending up in his paws) getting a job bottom rung level style setting his plan in motion where he makes some plusses holding his own against some of Kher's hordes but when he gets hurt & finds himself in a nearby village to recuperate, a holy man counsels him on his journey to become a freedom fighter whose fight is a good one, Patel redoubles his efforts (cue the training sequence montage) leading to a showdown w/Kher in a no holds bar pugilist clutch. Maybe too much, at least for me, an effort for Patel to take on ultimately wore me out when you take a John Wick style narrative of comeuppance layered w/attacks on India's caste system, the have's & the have-not's, the hero as spiritual savior, et al made me feel the way my eyes do whenever I glance at the offerings at an all you can eat smorgasbord. Oooh, I need some cinematic pepto! Also starring Sharlto Copley as the ring announcer in Patel's bouts.
  • Akira Kurasawa's (Yojimbo/Seven Samurai) 1950 drama about an artist, Toshiro Mifune, who is caught in a photograph w/a famous musician, Yoshiko Yamaguchi, prompting a gossip mag to move units as people start to believe an illicit affair occurred (when it didn't). Mifune, miffed at the attention, shows up at the rag's offices & bops the editor one prompting a low level lawyer to come out of the woodwork, Takashi Shimura, who volunteers to sue the paper which Mifune & Yamaguchi agree to but what the plaintiffs don't know is that the gossip mag has Shimura in their pocket (paying off & feeding his gambling habit) & him having a sickly daughter doesn't help his financial situation either which makes the subsequent trial particularly nail biting as we wait for Shimura to finally do the right thing. Kurasawa puts his stamp on something other directors like Frank Capra would've played for laughs but by inserting this sadsack attorney into the mix, the film is deepened for the better elevating the material in spite of itself.
  • Now streaming on Netflix is Zack Snyder's (Sucker Punch/Dawn of the Dead) follow-up to his mega-opus from last year which wraps up his Seven Samurai homage (poorly constructed theft?) as the heroes make a stand against the evil Galactic Empire, sorry Imperium, on a moon whose people are trained to fight the good fight w/the ultimate clutch between the good Sofia Boutella & evil Ed Skrein taking place on an imperial cruiser. Snyder at the outset never did himself any favors by espousing how 'original' his take on Kurasawa canon was when others like John Sturges & recently Antoine Fuqua managed to take his samurai epic & transplant it to the old West but even if you're argument leans on his melding samurai adventures w/a sci-fi aesthetic, sorry Roger Corman got there first w/1980's Battle Beyond the Stars.
  • Robert Wagner stars in this WWII yarn where a privileged land owner or 'cropper' who's been a bit of a cad w/his workers on his land back home (strangely all white!) but once he gets to the battlefront, surrounded by people he knew back home, namely his commanding officer & father-in-law, played by Robert Keith & even one of his comrades in arms, played by L. Q. Jones, one of Wagner's croppers from back home, his attitude changes as he begins to realize everyone deserves a fair shake no matter what strata they come from. As the fighting intensifies, Wagner starts to develop battle fatigue (PTSD to be more accurate) even though he still finds his nerve to be a worthwhile soldier (even after an incident where a comrade accidentally, out of fear, mows down his own men, Jones included!). Wagner snaps & beats the man within an inch of his life & is sent out to a remote bungalow run by a crass Captain, played by Broderick Crawford, who runs ramrod over his men but even w/that Wagner proves his mettle when during a recon mission he spots a large platoon of Japanese heading in their direction which proves catastrophic when Wagner's best bud, played by Buddy Ebsen, is hurt while they're defending a foxhole prompting Wagner, also shot & wounded, to race back to safety to get the Calvary to save the day. Directed efficiently by Richard Fleischer (The Narrow Margin/The Boston Strangler) who knew how to meld characterization w/action gave Wagner a fine platform to build upon. The solid supporting cast which features Brad Dexter, Harvey Lembeck (who would be the go to baddie in the Beach Blanket Bingo movies) & Frank Gorshin (The Riddler from TV's Batman) all contribute even in the smallest of performances.
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