The Green Berets

When I reviewed The Train last month, I realized that it was the first war movie I had watched in about a year.  I decided to amend my unbalanced film diet by filling up my Instant Queue with war movies and gathering my own collection of classic war DVDs together.  Despite the intention of going ahead and watching some of the true genre classics, I hit a snag: I really wasn't in the mood for a classic war movie.  I did, however, manage to watch The Green Berets.  Why did I opt to watch this one over, say, The Thin Red Line?  I'm not sure.  Maybe because I had never seen John Wayne outside of a Western?  Maybe because I have heard such strong opinions about the film, both for and against?  Or maybe I just didn't feel like watching a three-hour long film that would make me think.  Whatever my reasons were, in retrospect, I think they weren't good enough.

Green Beret Colonel Mike Kirby (John Wayne) is in Fort Bragg, preparing to ship out for another tour of Vietnam.  As he's preparing and selecting the men for his Special Forces unit, a tour is being conducted through the base for civilian reporters.  When the tour stops for a little Question-and-Answer session with some Green Berets, the (stinkin' liberal) reporters fire both proverbial barrels at the nice Green Berets.  Why is the US fighting another nation's war?  Why do we support a country with no constitution?  Why can't we let the South Vietnamese handle their own problems?  To answer, the Green Berets dump a bunch of weapons in front of the reporting crowd, proof that the Viet Cong are getting their weaponry from Czechoslovakia, China, and Russia --- all dirty Communist countries!  Well, I suppose it's proof, since we're kind of taking their word that A) the weapons really are from those countries and B) that the weapons really were captured in Vietnam.  But let's not open that door, because this movie is already over two hours long.  One reporter, George Beckworth (David Janssen), still isn't convinced that Vietnam is a necessary war for the US, and he tells Col. Kirby so; Kirby simply asks if Beckworth has seen the war firsthand, and dismisses him with contempt when Beckworth admits that he hasn't.  After that opening salvo, the film breaks up into two acts.  The first has Beckworth accompanying Kirby's team to Vietnam.  Will Beckworth learn the error of his ways?  Is changing the mind of a reporter really the point of this film?  The second act has Kirby and his men on a mission to kidnap a Viet Cong commander, who lives in splendor at the expense of the neighboring communities.  But at what cost?

Please tell me that George Takei's hat survives!

The acting in The Green Berets is about what you might expect from a war movie; many actors play small parts, and they are all suitably brave.  Jim Hutton provides the comic relief and the emotional weight in this story; he's not very good at either.  Aldo Ray plays Col. Kirby's right hand, and I think he did a pretty good job as a gung-ho soldier --- exasperation and deep emotions were beyond him, but I thought he fit the tone of the script very well.

Guess the emotion: constipation or mourning?

There are a few other recognizable supporting actors --- Bruce Cabot and son of the Duke Patrick Wayne --- but they play fairly interchangeable military guys.  It is interesting that Japanese-American actors Jack Soo and George Takei were the face of the South Vietnamese forces; while I thought both actors were decent enough, their casting struck me as a little odd (more on that later).  Of course, being a John Wayne movie, John Wayne is the main actor.  He was as traditionally John Wayne-y as you might expect.  He's too old to actually partake in any action scenes, but he is still pretty damn macho.  David Janssen's performance as the mean liberal reporter was decent, but his character was unintentionally hilarious.

John Wayne and special effects man Ray Kellogg share credit for directing The Green Berets, although it doesn't seem to be a secret that Mervyn LeRoy gave some uncredited help.  I'm not sure how I feel about the direction in this movie.  It is certainly not outstanding; the cinematography and the acting are nothing special.  This is a mostly competent directorial effort, I suppose, in the fact that this movie fits the style and tone of most war movies that had preceded it for the past two decades.  There are some critical problems, though, with the biggest being how incomprehensible the big battle scene at the fort is.  Let's just ignore how abruptly it switches from night to day and focus on the battle narrative itself; if it wasn't for the actors shouting "Fall back!" I would have never known that they were being overwhelmed by the Viet Cong.  That's a problem.

"Um...fall back!  We've got VC somewhere in the vicinity of this scene!"

Personally, I don't have much of a problem with The Green Berets being a pro-Vietnam War propaganda piece.  I don't agree with it, but I'm willing to listen.  It is worth noting that this is one of the few Vietnam War movies that casts the South Vietnamese army in a positive light.  It is also the only film about 'Nam I have seen that has no shades of grey; the soldiers are all heroes, happy to fight the enemy their government has assigned them, while the enemy are savage monsters that prey on the weak.  Why wouldn't America want in on a fight like that?  Right...?  After all, this is the only film that was made about Vietnam while the war was still in progress; if any movie sets the record straight about how the war really was, it should be The Green Berets.

"I think it's time to win this war.  Set phasers to 'boomsplosion'"

And yet, it is not.  You can begin to pick away at the problems with The Green Berets early and often.  I'm pretty sure Vietnam has jungles, or at least tropical plants.  This film has pine trees and the actors don't appear to be sweating at all.  The film wants so badly to show this war in a patriotic light, but it undercuts itself frequently.  For example, if the filmmakers wanted to make the South Vietnamese forces more credible, they should have cast Vietnamese actors; casting two actors of Japanese heritage seems to imply that the American audience won't care which Asian people they are supposed to root for.  And did they have to name the child character "Ham Chuck"?  If you ever wished you could see a really offensive version of Short Round, just watch a few of Ham Chuck's scenes.  Ugh.  The production values aren't great, either.  There is a helicopter crash (which everyone survived) that clearly showed a model chopper on fire.  The film's score insults the intelligence of the viewer, too.  If you're not sure whether you are supposed to be laughing, frowning, or feeling patriotic, don't worry --- The Green Berets provides musical cues, so you don't have to think!

The biggest problem with The Green Berets is not that it is a blatant and heavy-handed pro-war propaganda piece.  No, the problem is that it takes an issue that was famously complicated and uses machismo and patriotism to make its point.  If you question the message, then you are a coward who hates brave soldiers that are risking their lives.  That sort of rhetoric just pisses me off.  This could have been the film that John Wayne clearly wanted it to be --- a film that showed how brave American soldiers are and how important the fight against international Communism is.  Instead, he just takes cheap shots at civilian critics and dehumanizes the Viet Cong.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Wayne, that I doubted the usefulness of this conflict."

I could have handled The Green Berets if it ended when the reporter changed his attitude about the war (oh, I'm sorry...SPOILER) and claimed that he would lose his job if he tried to publish pro-war news articles.  Never mind that the comedy relief included in the film isn't even wah-wah worthy, or that American soldiers don't die in battle.  The first half is quaint and purposefully anachronistic, but it's somewhat decent at what it wants to do.  The second act is completely unnecessary and just stretches the story out past the point where anyone could possibly care about these bland characters.  It's all capped off by one of the biggest bullshit closing lines of all time.  On the one hand, I admire The Green Berets for going balls to the wall with its patriotic premise.  On the other hand, I hate being insulted by a bad movie.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture

Wow...EVERYBODY was in Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow!

Ten years after the television show was canceled, Star Trek returned as a feature film.  Ten years!  Think about it...that's like if Friends came back as a movie today!  Well, actually no...Star Trek was canceled due to low ratings, so I guess a more apt comparison would be the making of Sliders: The Movie.  Regardless, thanks to renewed popularity via syndication and the Hollywood science fiction boom in the late 70s, Star Trek: The Motion Picture was born, featuring the entire original cast.  Awesome...?

Deep in space, a mysterious energy cloud is effortlessly destroying everything in its path; while none can be seen, it is assumed that there is a ship or a being in the center of the cloud, probably because normal clouds don't fire energy beams.  The cloud is on a collision course with Earth, and it will reach the planet in two days.  The only spaceship that can intercept the cloud in time is the Enterprise, the same ship whose adventures were chronicled in the Star Trek TV show.  It's a small world, sometimes. 

Admiral James T. Kirk (William Shatner) has, since we last saw him, been promoted to administrative duty in Starfleet Command.  However, when he learns of this threat, he more or less assigns himself as the new Captain of the Enterprise, demoting the current Captain Decker (Stephen Collins) in the process.  As Kirk reassumes his command of the ship, he sees many familiar faces --- Scottie (James Doohan) is still in the engine room, Chekov (Walter Koenig) is still an underused character that will no doubt be injured at some point in the film, Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) still acts as a glorified telephone operator, and Sulu (George Takei) still has the second most awkward speech cadence on the ship, after Kirk.  That's almost the entire old crew!  Ten years, and they all still have the exact same jobs?  Apparently, there is little to no upward mobility within the ranks of Starfleet.  Well, after a little manipulation, Kirk convinces Leonard "Bones" McCoy (DeForest Kelley) to un-retire and return as the ship's chief doctor.  And, for reasons of his own, Spock (Leonard Nimoy) returns from his home planet to help, too.  With the one new cast member, Ilia (Persis Khambatta), the team was finally complete.  So, what do they do?  Well, after repairing the Enterprise (it was in the process of being refitted with new parts), they do exactly what you think they will: they intercept the cloud and try to uncover its mysteries.  Do they succeed?  Well, this movie has ten sequels to date --- what do you think?

I have to admit, this movie sets out with a purpose (To the cloud!) and it doesn't bother with much else.  The acting is about what you would expect from this cast; they act like television actors in a small-budget show.  It's not their fault, though, since most of them were brought back for nostalgia and not their talents.  The script doesn't help them much, either.  Naturally, Shatner and Nimoy get the meatiest roles, with the most development and dialogue.  DeForest Kelley comes in a close third with dialogue, if no character development (oh, wait...he shaves off a fake beard...does that count?), and nouveau-Trekkie Stephen Collins comes in a distant fourth, because new cast members obviously can't survive --- there's seven core cast members, and dialogue cut seven ways is pretty thin.  I won't say that the performances, outside of Shatner and Nimoy, were poor.  They aren't great, but they aren't horrible.  Nimoy's Spock isn't bad either, just socially awkward.  Shatner, though, is pretty terrible and I can't understand it.  Shatner is a funny guy and, at his Kirkiest, can play a charmingly overconfident leader.  This time, it seems as though he thinks he is performing Shakespeare on the stage and that he must pause between lines for the audience to stop clapping.  I'm moderately familiar with his peculiar vocal cadence, but it is greatly exaggerated here. And, believe it or not, Stephen Collins is even worse. 

But is the acting really the point of a movie like this?  No, it is about the idea, the adventure.  And, at its core, the central idea behind this story is a pretty cool one, especially if you are somewhat familiar with NASA missions.  You don't have to be a NASAnimal (if Glee can do "Gleek"...) to appreciate or understand it, but that knowledge deepens your appreciation for the plot.  That's the good news.  The bad news is that it takes over two hours to get to that core idea.  The rest of the film features the Enterprise slowly, slowly, slowly, approaching the destruct-o-cloud.  Oh, wait, I forgot about the slow-motion wormhole scene.  That alone felt like two hours, but my concept of time was undoubtedly warped by the gravity of the hole.  The film's pace is definitely the biggest problem with this movie; sometimes, slow exterior shots of the Enterprise are coupled with grandiose bits of the soundtrack, implying a sense of accomplishment that the script rarely provides.  If the two hours leading up to the climax were filled with adventure or character development or witty dialogue --- hell, even with Kirk seducing green women --- I would have no problem.  But do you know what you see on the screen?  Several sequences where a character is staring at the Enterprise's monitor, then cut to the monitor showing the energy cloud, then cut to another character and repeat for five minutes.  There must have been at least a half-dozen separate occasions like that. 

"Captain, scans show her to be beside herself in boredom."

Even the pace wouldn't have been a deal breaker if the production values were there.  If you're going to take forever to do something on the big screen, make sure there's enough pretty pictures to keep our eyes, if not our brains, occupied.  Despite having a pretty substantial budget, though, there are a lot of annoying failures with the post-production work.  The special effects, while better than the television show, were definitely not great.  They look even worse when compared to contemporary movies, like Star Wars, Alien, or Close Encounters.  And the makeup for the alien species is particularly bad; Spock's fellow Vulcans apparently got their pointy ears from a cereal box and the Klingons must have had homemade costumes.

Better than the film's costumes.  More expensive, too, even without the mower.

What we are left with is a television-grade production with television-grade actors and a lot of boredom.  Honestly, I am surprised at how amateurish this turned out, given the already existing sci-fi universe and the usual competence of director Robert Wise.  There must have been behind the scenes problems, because there is no way this movie makes its way from pitch to the big screen with this story and pacing.  I used to think that the Star Trek curse (only the even-numbered ones are any good) was a crock, but The Motion Picture has me convinced.