IN COUNTRY
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1989 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: This film is not so much an attempt to
help the audience understand the Vietnam war vet--it is more
a tribute and its message is diluted by unnecessary subplots.
Rating: low +2.
In the American film industry, lifting a taboo is like opening a floodgate. Sex was a taboo for a long time; so was very graphic violence. Neither seems to be a particularly scarce commodity in current films. Another subject that filmmakers felt they had to stay away from for a long time was the Vietnam war. The assumption was that films about an unpopular war would probably be unpopular also. Right into the mid-1980s the film industry was still making more films about World War II than it was about Vietnam. But now there seems to be at least three or four major films a year about the Vietnam war and if after-effects. Many are thoughtfully and intelligently made. Presently running there is both Brian DePalma's CASUALTIES OF WAR and Norman Jewison's IN COUNTRY. The latter has gotten quite a bit of favorable comment.
IN COUNTRY is the story of Samantha Hughes (played by Emily Lloyd) who, in the summer following her high school graduation, begins asking questions about her father's death in the war. Samantha lives in the small town of Hopewell, Kentucky, in amongst several Vietnam veterans, all of whom are haunted by their war memories and who, in fact, seem to be constantly living in the shadow of the war. Samantha is spending the summer with her uncle Emmett Smith (played very convincingly by Bruce Willis in one of his rare serious roles). The climax and culmination of her summer and the film is her visit, with her uncle and her grandmother, to the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington DC.
What makes IN COUNTRY remarkable among all the (respected) Vietnam- war-related films is how little understanding it really does bring. The story is diluted by subplots of Samantha's and her girl friend's romantic attachments, and more time is spent with an old girlfriend of Emmett's going after him again. The latter plot is tangentially related to the war theme, since Emmett is still too disturbed to relate well to anybody. But snippet flashbacks of Emmett's war experiences are just a bit too simple and pat. The scenes at the Memorial are moving--which is to say manipulative, but in a good cause--and clearly what the entire film is aiming for. However, there is nothing in the scene that brings us closer to the war experience. Like the Memorial itself, the film brings not so much understanding for the war veteran as a tribute to the veteran. That is not so ambitious a goal, but it is sufficient. I give the film a low +2 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
att!mtgzx!leeper
leeper@mtgzx.att.com
.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews