Gutless Under Cliché.

Yes, I know it’s trying to be inspiring and heroic and poignant, but COURAGE UNDER FIRE is one of the most blatantly gutless movies ever made. About a soldier investigating whether a downed female United States helicopter pilot in Desert Storm deserves a posthumous Medal of Honor. So I ask you: in which universe will America ever make a movie where a Medal of Honor is investigated and NOT awarded?

So it’s a foregone conclusion – all the mystery and mayhem and maybes are simply wasting our time more than the actual war this story was set in – as it leads inexorably to the melodramatic military funeral, the flags, saluting, tears of the family, proud shiny buttons and white gloves, the flyover with one plane breaking formation, and that bilious, bleating orchestra swell. And the Medal. The End. Cry me a river; cry me a patently meaningless award, military swine.

Then the coda: the investigating soldier visits pilot’s grave, salutes grave, tiny flag, voiceover of dead pilot to American Pie Mom and Dad, talking of the Big Push and hero hero hero hero hero hero another blithering orchestra swell I’m going to vomit…

Denzel Washington is the investigating soldier, with demons of his own. (Well, they’re not really demons; they’re roiling stabs of conscience he feels for stupidly shooting one of his own tanks during a skirmish, killing his own men in the hilariously black euphemism “friendly fire,” and then having the military cover-up his blunder.) And whenever he has visions of that po’ boy he fricasseed in that tank (Mmm! Soldierboy, the other white meat!), he heads straight for the alcohol… uh, cos he’s a hero, see.

When he’s asked to investigate whether Captain Karen Walden (Meg Ryan) is worthy of receiving the Medal of Honor for “courage under fire,” the story ends right there. Of course she’s deserving of it. She’s the first female officer recommended, she’s regarded as a hero for sacrificing her life for her men–and she’s Meg Ryan. As if the movie would go to all the trouble setting up her heroism and feminism and Ryanism and NOT award her the medal.

And every cliché in the military lexicon is thrown at us like grenades lobbed into foxholes:

• the tragic family that Denzel has to leave behind to “do his duty for his country” and investigate this chick; make that tragic “perfect” family–with four kids, none of them fight or scream or whine, his wife is totally supportive, no one is on drugs or getting pregnant or having affairs… yawn;
• Denzel is damaged goods, investigating soldiers who are damaged goods;
• Meg’s selflessness, the care for her boys, the tough love, the noble leader, the smart tactician–who was she? William Wallace or Jesus Christ?;
• the novice (Matt Damon), the toughguy (Lou Diamond Phillips), the hero-worshipper (Tim Guinee) and all the other bumboys under her command, like the Benetton passengers of SPEED;
• the hospitalized guy (Seth Gilliam) whose seen one battle too many;
• the military cover-up (common practice, we must assume, for all those dolts who lose their heads in firefights, only rarely exposed as public disgrace like Pat Tillman’s incident);
• everyone’s got Movie PTSD.

Denzel wants to find out “what really happened,” so COURAGE is constructed like a RASHOMON for rednecks, as we see all the alternate flashbacks with a coy Walden, an indecisive Walden and a butch Walden barking orders and trying not to look like a sex object. Not one of the scenarios is ambiguous about her Hero status — no matter if she threw Iraqi babies at walls or defunded the G.I. Bill. If we can call football players heroes, and people who jumped from the Twin Towers heroes, then this chopper pilot must be a shoo-in, so I ask again: what compels viewers to spend 120 minutes pretending there’s any doubt?

Denzel visits Walden’s helicopter bumboys, who all give differing accounts of My Night In The Desert With Captain Walden. Diamond Phillips claims he was the toughguy, as he lies and plies himself with alcohol and commits suicide (cos he’s a hero!); Damon claims Walden was a strategic hardnose, as he admits to being a junkie and afraid to go flying again (cos he’s a hero!); Guinee relates how Walden sacrificed herself for them, even as he reveals how she got them shot down by taking another pass at an Iraqi tank when she could have flown away–cognitive dissonance rules!–while constantly telling his wife to shutup for calling Walden butch (cos he’s a hero!); while Seth Gilliam pounds his medication to numb himself out of the running as a reputable eyewitness (cos he’s a hero, see!).

What’s in it for her bumboys to report that she was a coward? Nothing. But saying she was a HERO makes them vicarious heroes alongside her. Ooo-rah!

And here’s a note to all you military wardogs whose first reaction is to Spock-chop me for “disrespecting” you (such heroes, fighting for my right to have a differing opinion in a free country!): When are you going to realize your own government, who pays you hypocritical lip service, regards you with even less respect than I do? I just consider you deluded and egotistical and sometimes uneducated, while they consider you cannon fodder!

It’s the United States government that fools you into getting your asses shot off for them in the first place; it’s the United States government that refuses you and your family financial benefits when you return from war; it’s the United States government that stop-losses you, reneging on your stipulated leave time, over and over and over again; it’s the United States government that cuts your medical funding; it’s the United States government that evicts your family, that lies about friendly fire, that doesn’t provide armor for you or your vehicles; it’s the United States government that kicks you out for being gay after you’ve dedicated your life to them; it’s the United States government that supposedly trains you for PTSD and then all of you return from war with PTSD (Who are the assholes? You, who are either failing your training, or the government who are failing to train you properly?).

Is that what you bitches call “respect”?

Under fire from your own government, it’s about time you showed some real Courage Under Fire and tell them where to shove it next time they want to exploit you for political gain. That is, unless you really are as dumb as they consider you to be.

Ooo-rah!

END

Delicious Vicious, Frantic Romantic.

A brazen thug-fest, played like an adventure story for boys.

Tony Scott (TOP GUN, DAYS OF THUNDER) directs TRUE ROMANCE, but it’s got Quentin Tarantino‘s stank all over it – delicious dialogue juggled with vicious gun play. Though Tarantino is listed only as “writer,” TRUE ROMANCE seems to be the middle child of what could be construed his breakout trilogy, bookended by RESERVOIR DOGS (1992) and PULP FICTION (1994). A middle child just as misfit and misbehaved as its two outer siblings.

Comics/kung fu geek Clarence Worley (Christian Slater) marries naif hooker Alabama (Patricia Arquette) after just one night of molesting her mungus ta-tas, and resolves to rescue her from debauchery and bad people (which is somewhat ironic, considering he uses a big shiny gun to do so.) Cross country to The City of Angels they flee, with $5 million in cocaine that Clarence unwittingly steals from Alabama’s pimp after a Very Serious Shootout.

So begins a series of vicious vignettes, featuring a smorgasboard of delicious cameos. Dreadlocked Gary Oldman is Alabama’s pimp Drexl, more nigga than wigga (“He musta thought it was White Boy Day!”); diabolical Christopher Walken is unstoppable mob boss, Mr. Coccotti, who slams up against the immovable force of Clarence’s working class father (Dennis Hopper) in the most intense genealogical examination of “the nigger gene” this side of a Klan rally; James Gandolfini is – what else? – a hitman, which would inform his own breakout role soon enough in THE SOPRANOS; Brad Pitt, hilarious in a tiny stoner role; Michael Rappaport is Clarence’s bad actor buddy who just landed a role on T.J. HOOKER (Clarence: “You get to meet Captain Kirk!”); Val Kilmer as Clarence’s inner Elvis monologue.

If ever there was a dialogue-driven scene for aspiring young actors to hone your emotive palette, grab the few pages of Hopper and Walken. If you can pull off the galaxy of nuance between those two acting leviathans seemingly jovially discussing telltale signs of lying and eggplants, yet with the undercurrent of lives in the balance, you’re ready. Call William Morris.

Honorable mentions to Bronson Pinchot (with sweater tied around neck, like he is part of a Country Club who is embarrassed to admit he is a member) as a director’s go-fer, misrepresenting himself as only those whom Country Clubs repudiate can; and Saul Rubinek as the esteemed Hollywood director so egotistic he believes he can have someone killed if they cut him off on the highway.

With the uplifting music of Hans Zimmer sparkling the savage storyline, TRUE ROMANCE is a paean to youth and freedom and impulsiveness and righteous wrongdoing, oozing that insouciant hipness that Tarantino does so effortlessly. And yes, it all leads to that Tarantino trademark of everyone pointing a gun at everyone else.

True love is so much more romantic when hookers and drugs and guns are involved.

END