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Directed by: Franklin J. Schaffner Starring: George C. Scott, Karl Malden A multiple-Oscar winner, Patton seems to be considered one of the great war movies. Having watched it again on the new (and very good) DVD release, I found that it was a very good movie, but with some glaring weaknesses. Its strengths are very strong. Most notably, George C. Scott gives an amazing performance as Patton, presenting him as a multi-faceted, strange and interesting character, which he undoubtedly was in real life. Without his performance, this movie would just blend into the great morass of "Middling World War II movies." Jerry Goldsmith's soundtrack kicks ungodly rear end, it is just so spot-on in virtually every scene that you can't imagine the movie without it; it is almost as iconic as Scott's performance. You can hear two notes and you'll be thinking HELL YEAH HERE COMES PATTON YOU GREASY KRAUT BASTARDS!  The rest of the cast does well, Karl Malden's Bradley worked particularly well as a foil to Patton. However, in some respects this movie has aged poorly. The battles, while big and visually impressive, seem to have been staged by tactical retards, and make little sense in relation to actual WWII armored combat. Furthermore, for the most part they suffer from the kind of ultra-sanitized goofiness of 1940s propaganda reels. For instance, every time an artillery shell hits, 2-4 guys do these really silly looking, theatrical, and largely bloodless swan dives like a bunch of over-acting mimes. Obviously, this was not made in the era of Saving Private Ryan or Black Hawk Down; I wasn't expecting graphic, CGI-enhanced dismemberments or something. But the violence was diluted and stylized to the point where the whole sense of how bad war is simply does not come through, and the tactics were inauthentic to the point where you simply could not tell what Patton was doing that was so drat smart. Rommel's blitzkrieg looked more like a WWI tank advance, and Patton's counter-blitzkrieg hardly came off any better. There were some good battlefield moments, don't get me wrong; the opening sequence showing the aftermath of the Battle of Kasserine Pass was surprisingly grim and realistic. Had the rest of the movie followed that template, it could have beem far more effective even if it kept to the relatively bloodless PG rating. Notice my emphasis, I'm not interested in battle scenes or technical accuracy per se; this is first and foremost a biopic. But the failure to even get the basics right in this respect made it harder for the viewer to understand what made Patton so special; most of the military intellectual was simply lost, because the viewer never saw it in action. Which leads to another criticism of the film, namely that the main adviser on the movie (Omar Bradley) hated Patton's guts, and had an almighty ax to grind. So Patton is depicted as dumber and more bloodthirsty than he really was, conflating his carfully cultivated rabble-rousing image with the real man, while Bradley was shown as an almost angelic figure, when in fact he was merely a competent plodder with a largely media-manufactured identity as "the soldier's general." This doesn't ruin the movie by any stretch, but gives it a certain bitter aftertaste that does some injustice to both Patton, and history in general. All of which makes it sound like I dislike this film. Actually, the opposite is true. Overall, it is a very well-acted and technically competent movie, and broadly speaking it is historically accurate. The soundtrack is fantastic, and George C. Scott gives a performance so good that it takes the whole movie to a completely different level. Even allowing its significant weaknesses, it is a must-see movie. RATING: 4.0 PROS: Brilliant performance by Scott, great Jerry Goldsmith soundtrack CONS: Battle scenes are weak by modern standards. Some historically dubious content. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066206/ EDIT: The new 2-disc DVD release is fantastic; the picture and sound are great, and it is packed with features, including a Francis Ford Coppola commentary track and 3 documentaries. sean10mm fucked around with this message at 02:59 on Jun 26, 2006 |
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Jun 26, 2006 02:52
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