Screenhead

There are things that you’d never imagine going together in life.

Tom Cruise and John Woo is easily one of them.  But when you consider John Woo’s newest project announcement, a movie about a little known side of World War II, in which the Americans helped the Chinese.  Check out what Woo said in a recent interview:

“It’s based on a true story in WWII, about a group of American volunteer fighter pilots who worked with the Chinese Air Force fighting with the Japanese and they won the war. Also, it’s the story of Clair Chennault, and they did a great contribution for the Chinese, and the Chinese people love and respect them. The whole story is about a friendship between a Chinese and an American and they worked together.”

That’s not something you’d expect to go together either–the Chinese and the Americans.  Especially not lately!  But is this story going to be too obscure for World War II buffs?  Or will it be a shot in the arm for Cruise’s career, currently flagging under a weight of Scientology and insanity?

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I have to admit, there have not been a whole lot of World War 2 movies coming out these days.  I guess that whole “greatest generation” buzz just kinda wore off in the face of a depression that’s looking like it’ll make the thirties look like the nineties.  This is why I was actually pretty happy to find a copy of great war movie Defiance, featuring Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber.

Craig and Shreiber play the Bielski brothers, a pair of Jews who witnessed the complete destruction of their hometown at the hands of the Germans.  At least they looked like Germans–they seemed to be wearing the right uniform.  But anyway, following the slaughter of all they knew and loved, these simple farmers became freedom fighters, escaping into the woods around their houses, picking up strays as they went.  Eventually, the steadily growing collective built a camp in the woods with shelter for its residence, food storage and dispersal, and even fighting positions.  Sure, there was infighting and privation and sacrifice and everything else, but by and large, they got along well.  In fact, given the state of a lot of OTHER Jews in Europe at the time they were doing pretty nicely indeed.  But of course, this couldn’t last, and eventually the Germans grew tired of the Bielski group’s constant raids and sabotages and killing of German soldiery, so they launched all out war, eventually sending an entire division in a time when every man Hitler could muster was being either thrown at the Russians or at the Americans.

And I’ll be honest with you, this is a GREAT movie.  It’s got a huge runtime by today’s standards—just over two hours in fact—but you will almost barely notice it go by.  There is not a dull moment in this, whether they’re building their camp or blasting Nazis or running from same, there’s always something interesting going on here.

It’s a downright inspirational piece, as people in the midst of a horrible situation grapple with the very worst parts of their humanity, facing greed and rage and the craving for revenge, and yet at the same time, they also struggle to reaffirm their humanity in a time when they’re hunted like animals.

I love how this movie can switch so rapidly and so seamlessly between the most tender feelings humanity can muster for each other and the sheer blinding rage of hatred and warfare and bloodshead.  The dichotomy is just amazing, and watching this is like a blistering mix of themes and flavors all at once, that combines to make a whole far, far greater than the sum of its parts.

We need more movies like Defiance.  We need more characters willing to stand in the breach the way these characters do and willing to face down all the horrors that modern man can generate.  We need a little more uplifting in our movies…but just a little more.  It’s the kind of thing that’s so very easy to overdo.  Maybe Defiance didn’t, but it wouldn’t be hard for anyone else to do it.  It wouldn’t have been that hard for even Defiance itself to overdo it.  But it didn’t, and that’s the great news for all of us.

Basically, Defiance is an amazing movie with top-notch performances, a great cast, and a plotline so uplifting it’s a wonder there isn’t a hole in my ceiling right now just from watching this thing.  It’s definitely worth your time to see this.

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Tom Cruise is a crazy, scary man.  If you read the tabloids long enough you’ll find scads of stories about him, his sheer lunacy, and the sheer lunacy that applies to his dealings with Scientology.  But one thing is true…he’s a pretty good actor. And when you run to the video store and grab a copy of Valkyrie, well, you’ll probably notice that yourself.

In Valkyrie, we’re introduced to a huge and incredibly convoluted plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler by elements within his own army.  The best part is, much of this actually happened.  Klaus von Stauffenberg (a real person, here played by Tom Cruise) is part of the military arm of the attempt to kill Hitler, using his own plans against him.  See, Hitler had a plan just in case someone should turn against him called Operation Valkyrie, in which a reserve contingent of the German army, dubbed the Reserve Army, was kept around Berlin in the event of an uprising to suppress civil insurrection.  So Stauffenberg and his contingent feign an uprising…on the part of Hitler’s own SS.  This allows them to enact Operation Valkyrie to seize the SS, and with both the Reserve Army and the SS removed from the equation, the path becomes clear to seize Hitler’s government.

The most amazing part of this entire exercise is that this actually happened, and essentially came within a gnat’s whisker of actually succeeding, which would have brought the war to an end quite a bit sooner than it actually did.  Frankly, with stuff like this going on, it’s a wonder Hitler’s regime managed to last as long as it did.  Watching this epic story of love of country and betrayal play out is downright amazing—even more so when you consider that Hitler would commit suicide just nine months after the events of Valkyrie.  It’s as though something was conceived that day that would be born as real as any man.

History aside, however, this is actually a very riveting movie, made doubly so by the fact that it has an unusually long runtime of a full two hours, in an era where eighty to ninety minutes is standard operating procedure.  It’s a stunning, deep and rich epic that makes its viewer sit up and take notice.  While most of us who haven’t studied World War II history extensively may not have known about Operation Valkyrie or the other fourteen assassination attempts on Hitler, this one carries an authenticity to it that makes it especially good.  These were men so concerned about the direction of their country that they were willing to surrender their status and their very lives to bring about its downfall and rebirth.

And though the Stauffenberg heirs didn’t personally care for Cruise’s portrayal of him, I confess that I liked it just fine.  If Tom Cruise would lay off the lunacy and do more acting like this, more people would take him much, MUCH, more seriously.

But that aside, Valkyrie is a great thriller / suspense title  and deserves your dollars and your time to watch.  It’s downright inspiring in its portrayal of resistance to a madman, and it looks as beautiful as the plot itself is deep.

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