Dom Robinson reviews

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Cert:

Cat.no: 21708 DVD

Running time: 96 minutes

Year: 2000

Pressing: 2002

Region(s): 2, PAL

Chapters: 15 plus extras

Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1

Languages: English

Subtitles: 14 languages available

Widescreen: 1.85:1

16:9-Enhanced: Yes

Macrovision: Yes

Disc Format: DVD 9

Price: £19.99

Extras: Trailer, TV Spots, Colin Farrell's Screen Tests, Featurette, Director's Commentary

Director:

Joel Schumacher (8MM, Bad Company, Batman And Robin, Batman Forever, Chasing the Dragon, The Client, Cousins, Dying Young, Falling Down, Flawless, The Lost Boys, Phone Booth, St. Elmo's Fire, Tigerland, A Time To Kill)

Producer:

Arnon Milchan, Steven Haft and Beau Flynn

Screenplay:

Ross Klavan and Michael McGruther

Music:

Nathan Larson

Cast:

Private Roland Bozz: Colin Farrell
Private Jim "Pax" Paxton: Matthew Davis
Miter: Clifton Collins Jr.
Cantwell: Thomas Guiry
Private Wilson: Shea Whigham
Private Johnson: Russell Richardson
Captain Saunders: Nick Searcy
Sergeant Erza Landers: Aferno Omilami
Sergeant Thomas: James MacDonald

Despite the occasionally interesting direction with a hand-held camera, often shot slightly shaky on purpose, by Joel Schumacher, the film isn't half as enticing as I thought it would be. Perhaps I've seen enough war movies and Hollywood has made enough Vietnam films, but continuing to centralise on individual sections of the war no matter how small?

Either way, it gets very samey very quickly with the same stories played out that we've seen before: over-zealous sergeants (James MacDonald as Sergeant Thomas), their snotty superior (Nick Searcy as Captain Saunders), a weedy recruit who gets picked on (Clifton Collins Jr. as Miter), a boisterous leader (Colin Farrell as Bozz) and his cocky best friend Matthew Davis as Paxton) as well as the old favourites thrown in for good measure such as weekend passes and shagging loose women.

The Tigerland team.

The film is presented in the original 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen ratio and has an intentionally-gritty look, but despite that I can still tell print flecks when I see them and parts of this one have more drop-outs than they should.

The sound is reasonable, but apart from a couple of shoot-outs that might use the Dolby Digital 5.1 soundstage, most of the time it's only for ambience.

The extras consist of a 2½-minute 4:3 trailer, two 30-second TV spots with a deep voice announcer, a standard 4-minute featurette which mixes 4:3 film clips with chat from cast and crew members, Colin Farrell's casting sessions - totalling around six minutes and a director's commentary.

The menus are static and silent, there are just 15 chapters to the film, but the subtitles come in 14 flavours: English for the hard of hearing as well as Czech, Danish, Finnish, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Swedish, French, Dutch and Greek.

FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS
OVERALL

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2002.