The Gallant Hours

James Cagney and Ward Costello

Robert Montgomery's The Gallant Hours is a peculiar mix of docudrama and hagiography. The picture illustrates Admiral Bull Halsey's leadership during World War 2's Guadalcanal campaign. The film is bookended by scenes of Halsey's retirement from service. The limited scope of this feature is a kindness to Halsey whose personal life and naval career were far more checkered than this flick lets on. Halsey in the film is a salt of the earth mensch, his door always open to the plaints of a troubled junior officer or swabie. James Cagney, in a role that is tailor made for him, holds together this rather static flick. There is an attempt to parallel Halsey's strategizing with that of his opponent, the Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. This film does a reasonably good job of humanizing the enemy for an American film from 1960.  However, Yamamoto's death, which serves as the ambivalent climax of this film, occurred five months after the end of the Guadalcanal campaign. There are a few other inaccuracies because when you do a hagiography there has to be a little hogwash.

The documentary aspect of the script, by Frank D. Gilroy and Air Force veteran Beirne Lay Jr., uses extensive narration to outline, poorly, the strategy of the campaign. What works better is an effort to humanize the characters by offering details about individual's make-up and ultimate fate. The narration, alternated by Montgomery and Art Gilmore, is compelling when offering us such tidbits as Yamamoto's passion for poker and that one character ends up Governor of South Dakota and another a paraplegic. Would that Montgomery's visual approach had been half as interesting. Instead, the approach is torpid and seems chintzy. This was a film produced by Montgomery and Cagney, so there seems to have been more attention to cutting corners than usual. Most of the camera set-ups are primitive and there are no battle scenes in this war movie. It is an actor's movie of the war.

Now that may not have been such a bad idea with one of the greatest actors of the century in the lead. Cagney underplays, the mythos of the role preceding him, and captures an exemplary senior officer who displays more charm than the real Halsey did. Cagney's deft touch is best seen in the moment he hears of Yamamoto's death. While his comrades are celebrating, Halsey seems aggrieved. Earlier in the film, Halsey had narrowly escaped a similar fate as that of his opponent. We can see what Halsey is thinking in Cagney's eyes: there, but for the grace of God, go I. I also enjoyed the scenes of Cagney interacting with faces that would become increasing familiar in the future: Dennis Weaver, Richard Jaeckel, and William Schallert. I don't really like The Gallant Hours as a film, but admire Montgomery for providing moments of dignity for those who gave all. A large portion of the cast of this film served in the war. Some, like Montgomery and Ward Costello, were genuine heroes.

The Rip

Ben Affleck and Matt Damon

Joe Carnahan's The Rip is a good meat and potatoes crime film that stars Ben Affleck and Matt Damon and is now streaming on Netflix. The duo are members of a Tactical Narcotics Team investigating crooked cops ripping off narcotics dealers in Miami. The portrayal of law enforcement officials on the border line of criminality couldn't be more timely. No character in the film seems completely trustworthy and there are two outright rat finks among them. Carnahan's films are pretty much always studies in machismo and The Rip is no exception. Even the distaff members of Ben and Matt's crew, Teyana Taylor and Catalina Sandino Moreno, engage in the chop busting banter so typical of males in packs. 

Carnahan's screenplay is well constructed and smart, but there is an inevitable sense of déjà vu to the proceedings. If you've seen one corrupt cop movie, you've seen a facsimile of The Rip. Still, the performances are solid and Juan Miguel Azpiroz's cinematography bathes the action sequences in delirious colors, making this, by far, Carnahan's most visually exciting film. The finale of the film has Affleck and Damon having a beer together on a beach as the sun rises over Miami. If this is their last film together, then this would be a fittingly romantic capstone to an onscreen bromance that has spanned the decades.

A Confucian Confusion

Shiang-Cyi Chen and Shu-Chun Ni

Edward Yang's A Confucian Confusion is an engrossing polyphonic portrait of Taipei released in 1994.  If I had to categorize this winning film, I would call it a workplace based romantic comedy, since a number of the characters work at a public relations agency, but that would be pigeonholing a work that defies easy categorization. What strikes me about the film, which juggles the lives of over a dozen characters over the course of of two days, is the overall mood of romantic dissatisfaction that permeates throughout. All of the couples we witness are well past the honeymoon period of their relationship. This is more a movie about conscious uncoupling than one about romance sparking. When a relationship is consummated in the film, regret is inevitable and almost instantaneous. Yet, the film, though rueful, is never depressing, but is ultimately buoyant in its handling of its characters' travails.

A Confucian Confusion fragmented narrative mirrors the disconnected lives of its characters. The film is edited into shards of plot, Confucian parables, painted legends, and advertising slogans. The mise-en-scene entraps the characters at luxurious offices and TGIFridays giving the picture a lost in the supermarket feel of anomie. The surfaces are bright, reflecting the lives of the pretty young things enjoying the luxuries of Taiwan's economic miracle. The characters are miserable despite the appointed decor, the to die for couture, and the bling. They careen around after work doing cartwheels, puking into potted plants, and bickering in cabs. Dual poles within a narrow society are displayed. Postmodern amorality is contrasted with delusional traditionalism, ascetic artists with gleefully vulgar ones. The film is on a par with such masterpieces as A Brighter Summer Day and Yi Yi. It has been paired in an attractive package by the ever dependable Criterion Collection with Yang's 1996 effort Mahjong.

Mahjong is less successful, but most movies are. The international actors seem ill at ease. Once again we are faced with Confucian parables and perfidious western influence. TGIFridays is reprised and The Hard Rock Cafe is the featured location. Amoral criminality reigns supreme. The film's most successful procurer, Diana Dupuis' Ginger, struck me as a double for Ghislaine Maxwell in this farsighted and somber film whose main theme is sexual grooming. This Criterion two pack would grace any film lover's video library.