** out of ****
Year: 1999. Starring John Travolta, Madeline Stowe, James Cromwell, Timothy Hutton, James Woods, Leslie Stefanson, Daniel von Bargen, Clarence Williams III. Screenplay by Christopher Bertolini and William Goldman. Directed by Simon West. Rated R.
Actors love this stuff. They love to dress up as army guys, stand really straight, and salute a lot. I mean, it made the careers of such actors as Louis Gossett Jr. and George C. Scott, while somehow making Demi Moore look like a respectable actress. This time, John Travolta tries it in "The General's Daughter," a movie that desperately wants to be a Tom Clancy adaptation, but falls just short of stuff like "A Clear and Present Danger" and "Patriot Games." Travolta? Well, he's no Harrison Ford, but he's pretty good. Too bad the story isn't given the same effort as Travolta gives to his performance. Otherwise, we'd have a nice little political thriller here.
Travolta plays Sgt. Paul Brenner, an investigator for the military currently working on an undercover mission to bust a weapons shipment to the leader of a militia. While on the mission, he meets Elisabeth Campbell (Leslie Stefanson), a pretty young officer working in the army's psychology department. After Brenner finishes his original mission, he is called out on another job, which has Elisabeth dead, bound, and naked in an army training ground, the apparent victim of rape and strangulation. Brought in to help Brenner with the investigation is Sarah Sunhill (Madeline Stowe), a rape expert with whom Brenner has had a romantic past. Further complicating matters is the fact that Elisabeth is the daughter of respected General Joseph Campbell (James Cromwell), under whom Brenner served in Vietnam and who wants the matter kept entirely within the military. Brenner and Sunhill discover that there is more to the murder than simple rape, as they find that Elisabeth was involved in sadomasochistic sexual activity, and has more than her share of skeletons in the closet.
The strongest part of "The General's Daughter" is that all the actors give enthusiastic performances. Travolta does his best to emulate Harrison Ford, playing the man with unshakable moral character who must fight for what's right while everyone else tells him to keep his nose out of it. While he's not nearly as compelling as Ford was in "A Clear and Present Danger," he still does a respectable job of carrying the film. He hits the right note in most scenes and delivers one-liners with fine comic timing. His scenes with James Woods, playing Elisabeth's teacher who obviously knows more than he's letting on, are among the best in the movie. Woods' character is a psychological expert, and Travolta matches him line for line as the two go through a nicely-written little psychological battle. James Cromwell now seems to be making a living of playing seedy high-ranking officers with plenty to hide. After his role in "L.A. Confidential," he's up to his villainous old tricks here. We're not sure if he's the killer, but there is little doubt that he had something to do with it. Madeline Stowe, being the woman, is (not surprisingly) underwritten. These movies just aren't made for female actors. She has little more to do than follow Travolta around and make vague allusions to some romantic rendezvous they had years ago. Won't the writers please give her more to do?
Veteran screenwriter William Goldman was brought in on this project to spice up the dialogue, and it shows. There are plenty of clever one-liners and scene-closing zingers in "The General's Daughter." While Goldman may have gone a bit overboard by ending practically every scene with a snappy joke, his dialogue is quite good in most scenes. Now, one would think that snappy dialogue and above-average performances would make for a great movie, but they don't, because the story is not nearly up to par. What's wrong with it? First off, the whole thing is pretty routine and, at times, downright silly. Bad guys are bad guys and good guys are good guys. While we are at no time certain who the killer is, there is no doubt who was involved. The film runs into a problem near the end when, after throwing us red herring after red herring about the identity of the killer, it suddenly has to decide on someone, and the decision left me somewhat nonplused. The choice seemed rather arbitrary and was not explained terribly well, a surprise after the movie has held our hand most of the way through, explaining in great detail exactly what is going on, and leaving nothing to the imagination. The film also gets into trouble because of that very dedication to detail. We see the events of Elisabeth's rape in harsh and unnecessary flashbacks, while her naked corpse is left out in the open for an awfully long time. I thought it was standard procedure to cover up the body at a murder scene. In "The General's Daughter," it is apparently not. Not only that, but most of the major revelations come in a sort of "Whoops, I found a clue" fashion. Brenner is constantly noticing things out of the corner of his eye, and after a while it becomes annoying.
Director Simon West keeps the film moving quickly, if nothing else, but his direction is far too obvious when it comes to setting the tone for a scene. There are "meaningful looks" galore in "The General's Daughter." Travolta walks into a bar and it seems that everyone, even the extras, is glaring at him. West's attempts to set "mood lighting" only give the impression that someone forgot to pay the lighting bill. Nobody ever has a well-lit basement, apartment, or office in a movie like this, and for some reason the investigators decide to drop in on the crime scene in the dead of night. The director, along with the screenwriters, also allows random subplots to disappear at whim. A bit about a meddling local sheriff ends up being used only as comic relief. The story of Brenner and Sunhill's relationship goes nowhere, and it becomes clear that it was only mentioned to set up romantic "tension" between the two, not to develop their characters.
"The General's Daughter" is obviously not trying to win any points for originality, but at least it could have tried to tell us something new. Instead, we get mixed messages about women in the military and corruption of high-ranking officers, nothing that we didn't already see done much better in "G.I. Jane," or any number of Tom Clancy adaptations. It's too bad that the story doesn't provide better punch, because this film has a few things going for it: (1) It's mercifully short (after sitting through oppressively long films of this genre, a two-hour running time is a blessing), (2) it boasts an A-list cast, and (3) it has plenty of good dialogue. With those things going for it, "The General's Daughter" stood a good chance of being an intriguing military drama. With such a formulaic and obvious plot, however, it stands as a mediocre entry into the realm of political thrillers.
-reviewed by Shay Casey
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