User Comments: Date: 10 January 2004
Summary: An American in Japan
Set in 1870's Japan, `The Last Samurai' is most effective when it sticks
to
the harsh realities of its blood- soaked battle scenes and avoids the
softening effects of its two-bit philosophizing.
Tom Cruise is stoic and stolid as Nathan Algren, a former captain of the
United States army who is having trouble coming to grips with the part he
played in slaughtering a village of innocent American Indians. Now
drifting
aimlessly through life, Algren disinterestedly agrees to go to Japan to
help
train its military in the ways of modern warfare so that the nation's
leaders can take on and destroy the sole remnants of the samurai forces
who
are still using swords as weapons. Once he is captured by the `enemy,'
however, Algren falls under the spell of the Samurai Code of Honor and
switches his allegiance in battle, ending up fighting with the samurai
(whom
he views as the equivalent of `Indian underdogs' in the struggle) against
the people he was brought over to train. The film, thus, becomes a study
in
redemption as this one man attempts to find his place in the scheme of
things and to erase the life-crippling guilt of his past
actions.
Director Edward Zwick, who made one of the best war films of modern times
(`Glory'), has had less success here, mainly because he stacks the deck
so
shamelessly in favor of the samurai that we can't help feeing manipulated
all throughout the film. In many ways, `The Last Samurai' is as guilty
of
one-sidedness as those old time Westerns that used to portray the Indians
as
faceless savages and the White Man as noble adventurers and heroes. Each
perspective seems equally unhistorical and phony. It's hard for us to
see
much meaning in Algren's redemption when the people he is following spend
much of their time garroting themselves and chopping off one another's
heads. And all the talk about `honor,' `shame,' the beauty of cherry
blossoms and getting in touch with the inner self through a zen-type
lifestyle don't amount to too much when we stand back and realize that
the
samurai were basically bloody warriors who often terrorized the general
populous with their acts of brutality and violence. The makers of the
film
want us to see a vast moral chasm separating the samurai from both the
Japanese military and the evil American colonials who support them, but
it
is, ultimately, a distinction without a difference. So when we are asked
to
cheer on Algren and his compatriots in battle or weep over their fate,
the
movie loses its grip on us in a major way. The film becomes just another
case of glorifying and romanticizing a way of life that we somehow
suspect
was a bit less noble and honorable than we have always been led to
believe
by the countless movies on the subject.
Technically, `The Last Samurai' is a mighty impressive achievement. In
addition to the eye-catching vistas of rural Japan and a beautifully
recreated 19th Century city, the film's large-scaled battle sequences
have
been stunningly mounted and executed - though the faint-of-heart should
note
that the body count on screen is enormous and the blood flows generously
throughout. There are, also, some admittedly touching moments scattered
throughout the film, though the Hollywood corn is never too far from the
surface (particularly in Algren's romantic attachment to the wife of a
man
he killed).
`The Last Samurai' is a joy to look at, but its unsubtle approach to its
material and lack of evenhandedness make it far less meaningful and
moving
than, I'm sure, it both wanted and intended to be.
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