Video Pick of the Week
By JOHN CRAWFORD
Scene Movie Critic
A furnace burns under Denzel Washington's skin.
In his best work, such as his recent Oscar-nominated turn in "The Hurricane," Washington portrays men struggling to subdue or strangle their feelings. On the surface, his characters are flesh-and-blood statues, stones slowly cracking into tears. On the inside, regrets and memories wage war over emotional battlefields.
In 1996's "Courage Under Fire," Washington plays Nathaniel Serling, a lieutenant colonel struggling with the ghosts of war. Directed by Edward Zwick, whose previous efforts include "The Siege," "Legends of the Fall," and most notably, "Glory," for which Washington won a best supporting actor Oscar, "Courage Under Fire" shows men confronting their memories of combat, and how those memories warp and bend. War buries the truth, and everyone from army investigators to reporters to soldiers tries to discover or hide it.
The film is set against the backdrop of the Gulf War, where oil wells burn in the night and tanks roll over a desert wasteland. It depicts modern conflict fought with scanners and scopes and radar screen blips — a video game with rockets and bullets.
It is also brutal. Before riding into battle, Serling tells his men, "Let's kill them all." Firing a machine gun at Iraqi soldiers, he flashes his teeth with a killed-or-be-killed intensity.
During the battle, however, Serling accidentally orders his men to fire on an American tank. Returning home, this decision haunts him. At times crumpled and crushed with guilt, other times mean and angry, he hides in bars and motel rooms. He becomes isolated from his family. "Colonel, the war is over," he is told, but for Serling and the other soldiers in the film, the war is never over.
As he struggles with the past , Serling is ordered to investigate and prove that a Captain Karen Walden, who died in combat after she rescued a downed helicopter crew, is deserving of the Medal of Honor. The heroine's feel-good story will provide "one little shiny piece of something for people to believe in." But, as Serling soon discovers, there are inconsistencies in the stories of the soldiers involved in Walden's rescue.
In a recurring flashback, the Walden rescue mission is replayed again and again, each time changing slightly with a different soldier's version of the event. In many ways, this technique is reminiscent of Akira Kurosawa's dark masterwork "Rashomon," where a rape and murder is told from four conflicting viewpoints.
Serling obsesses over Walden, hoping, by pursuing the truth, to find his won redemption. It is not easily found.
"You agree that this report [on Walden] should be as detailed and accurate as possible?" Serling asks his commanding officer, portrayed by Michael Moriarty
"Which means exactly what, colonel?" Moriarty replies. Indeed, the truth, as well as redemption, is hard to capture.
Besides Washington, the film features a macho Lou Diamond Phillips and Matt Damon, looking even more boyish than usual.
Meg Ryan, of all people, plays Walden. Surprisingly, the role doesn't involve comedy, romance or any combination of the two. In fact, she even shoots guns, kills people, and at one point, utters the words, "Kill that mother------." Unfortunately, she still looks too cute and acts too cheery to be a soldier. Perhaps it's just her film baggage, all those movies of her mooning over Billy Crystal and Tom Hanks, that causes her to come off, at times, as a sort of Martha Stewart in combat boots.
All Scene Stories for Thursday, February 24, 2000
