Harvey-Keitel Movie Reviews

I loved this movie! But I wasn't surprised. Only Altman could bring so much humor, so much introspection and so much humanity to the western genre. Feauturing all-around brilliant performances by Newman, Lancaster, Sampson, Chaplin, Grey and of course Frank Kaquitts as Sitting Bull! Technically, the film excells, especially Paul Lohmann's wonderful cinematography. If you are a fan of Altman's or if your looking for something a little smarter than your run-of-the mill western drama, Buffalo Bill And The Indians Or Sitting Bull's History Lesson is a must!!!

Robert Altman's "Buffalo Bill and the Indians (or Sitting Bull's History Lession)" has largely been forgotten while his other films from this period have been rediscovered as classics. While maybe its time for this one too.

The "Why" of why this film such a critical bomb is not hard to decipher, Altman is continuing his critique of the West that started with "McCabe and Mrs. Miller". Yet this film is even more scathing. Bufflo Bill is an illiterate buffoon and President Cleveland works as a reminder that there were politicians back then. What I think really worked against Altman here, wasn't his treatment of this historical period but the changing of his own. In 1976, audiences were getting tired of these self-conscious films that were popular just five years eariler. "Buffalo Bill" stuck between "Jaws" (in '75) and then "Star Wars" (in '77) was a hard sell as the country was getting more conservative.

Beside this, "Buffalo Bill" like a lot Altman films is a great film. He continues his pioneering use of overlapping dialogue and widescreen cinematography. And oh, did I mention it was funny, a second viewing really helps catch all of Altman's wry wit. Newman fooling around with ballet dancers is hilarious. And you can't tell me that the extra "Or Sitting Bull's History Lession" isn't a homage to Kubrick.

This is a quirky take on white/native relations in the late 19th/early 20th century, a mad mix of historical fact and whimsical fiction. Newman is masterful as the addled demagogue into which Buffalo Bill has morphed. I recommend this film for students enrolled in our college's AMERICAN WEST class; it is provocative fodder for good discussion, good writing on alternative views of history.

Robert Altman fans will recognize stock characters from his other films, but will be entertained (perhaps delighted) throughout.

This is a highly improbable mess of a film. First, the acting is bad all around. Brian Keith is probably the best, simply because he's a bit restrained. Elizabeth Taylor is somewhat less incredible than usual. She does a Southern accent fairly well, but can't get any believable feeling into the lines she mouths. Julie Harris, who usually CAN act, is completely unbelievable as a mental case: she comes across as the sanest person in the movie, but maybe that's what the film makers intended. Lowest marks go to (choose one) the outrageously campy Asian houseboy or to Marlon Brando, whose Southern accent is unlike anything ever heard in the South. Oh, I forgot the naked robot, whose character is perhaps even less believable than Harris's (What in the world is he supposed to be or represent?)

Still, it's kind of interesting to watch this strange mishmash and try to imagine what more talented and thoughtful people might have done with the material. And like all kitsch, it's good for a laugh or two.

In theory having Marlon Brando and Elizabeth Tayler co-starring and John Huston directing is suppose to be a good thing. Three of the most talented people to ever put in their time in the industry, the picture would have to good right? No, not this time around at least. Theory becomes reality in a lackluster film called Reflections in a Golden Eye.

Brando and Taylor are a married couple named Weldon and Leonora Penderton. They are living together on a military base in the south where Brando is stationed. It is quickly established that there is no love left in this marriage. Leonora enjoys riding horses and meeting up with her lover, Lt. Colonel Langdon(Brian Keith). Langdon is their neighbor and is also in a failing marriage. His wife, Allison(Julie Harris), is a psychotic, or perhaps manic depressive, who is into self-mutilation and hanging out with her caretaker, Anacleto (Zorro David). Weldon spends his time tending to his duties with an apparent sense of doom. The only time Leonora and Weldon share is when Lt. Langdon comes over to play cards. Weldon is aware of the affair, but he does not care because it is strongly implyed that he is a homosexual. Futhermore he is obsessed with a young private he has seen walking naked through the woods near his home. At first he trys to fight his feelings toward this man and he goes through all the emotions, disgust, denial, fear, anger, and finally, lust and longing. Leonora is similarly unhappy but has different ways of surpressing her impending sadness. All this makes for a morbid film with an even more morbid ending.

In 1967 this film was probably consided pretty edgey and risque. By todays standards it is not. Brando does a good job of expressing Weldon's pent-up homosexual urges, but it gets to the point when the implications become annoying. Taylor, usually a fine performer, is hammy and does three films worth of over acting. The pacing of this film is dreadfully slow. And in the end all that is really said about these characters is that they were all miserable. I did not enjoy it.

Based on the novel by Carson McCullers, and directed by John Huston [quite a bold subject-choice at that time], and starring Elizabeth Taylor, Marlon Brando, Julie Harris, Brian Keith, set in a Military Academy 'somewhere down South' it's a lonely story about self-mutilation, unfulfilled love, stereotypes, equine apttitude, voyeurism and more ......

Robert Forster is the object of distant affection, a young private on this base with an aptitude for riding bareback [a scene not deleted, but strangely 'blurred' by vigilant censors abroad].

Grand score by Toshiro Mayuzumi [who also collaborated with Huston on "The Bible"].

McCullers knew the lonely heart - Huston's work was initially
condemned [just too many 'perversions'] but deserves to be fully restored to DVD glory in wide-screen.

Great companion to "Death in Venice".

Also features a young Harvey Keitel on the base!

I think the title of this review says it all. I lost count of the historical inaccuracies after the first ten minutes! Of course, the Germans were the brutal bunglers who cheated on zeir frauleins und vipped zeir dachsunds! No really, steer well clear of this disaster. If you wish to view a TRUE account of the Battle of the Atlantic as the sailors saw it, watch "Das Boot: The Director's Cut"...or better still, the unabridged version of the same movie.

In "U-571", the green crew of an obsolete USN submarine is plucked, while in bad need of R&R, for a highly secret mission that amounts to wartime piracy. It's 1942, dark days for the allies everywhere, and especially in the battle of the north Atlantic. Detecting a distress call from the crippled German submarine U-571, damaged during an attack that sent scores of allied ships to the bottom, Washington commandeers a tired "S-Boat" - a class of American submarine already obsolete by the outset of war - and orders its crew to seize the U-boat, her crew and especially the "Enigma". Enigma refers to a actual machine used by the Kriegsmarine to decode and encode messages to and from its warships. By capturing one of the machines, the allies hope to break the German codes and learn to navigate its ships around the Nazi subs which, stealth aside, are slow and very vulnerable. Lt. Commander Dahlgren's (an unusually serious Bill Paxton) obsolete sub is needed because newer subs are conspicuously larger than the smaller U-boats. (the plan requires the S-boat to impersonate a "friendly" U-boat responding to U-571's SOS). Ofcourse, nothing goes as planned, painfully so when it looks like the plan was beginning to work. Instead, after U-571 has been seized and its Enigma recovered, the U-571's actual sister-sub appears and sinks Dahlgren's boat, crew and all. Now, the survivors, under command of Lt. Andrew Tyler (Matthew McConaughey, also looking very severe, with a crewcut that shaves years off his life) must save U-571, learn the secret of driving the foreign sub and sail her across the Atlantic. Tyler is a whiz at subs, but he's unproven (a point Paxton's character makes when explaining why he didn't recommend him for command). Instead, he relies on Chief Klough (Harvey Keitel) to explain what "Sub School" could not. After narrowly defeating the other U-boat, Tyler and his crew settle on the slightly less impossible of their two plans - sail for England, getting as close as possible without being sighted...by anybody. On discovery of U-571's capture, the Germans are certain to modify their Enigmas, and the recovery of the sub will have been in vain. (discovery is less likely in an eastward course, even though it means sailing in waters swimming with U-boats). By the end of the flick, Tyler will have barely survived a game of "cat and mouse" with a German destroyer, and a game of "The Caine Mutiny" with his own crew.

This flick took a lot of lumps for realism stretches, though most are unearned. The film neglects to mention that the Brits recovered Enigma machines years before we Yanks. OTOH, the events of "U-571" are set about a year after the RN's daring and critical recovery of Nazi code machines and documents, so the flick isn't depicting Americans accomplishing something before England had (which would have been unlikely anyway since we weren't officially in the war at the time). Rather than re-writing history, the script merely ignores it, but that makes sense also given how under-wraps such an event would have been in wartime. A disclaimer, mentioning that Enigma machines and materials had already been recovered a year earlier would have made hash of the film's premise, in which Tyler's crew braves enemy-filled waters to preserve the secret of their recovery. Taking an unrealistic premise - Tyler and his crew assimilating the incredibly complicated and undeniably foreign ship - "U-571" works in a very realistic way, with the script showing how quick thinking and not a small amount of luck saved the day, and how narrowly Tyler and crew beat the odds. The cinematography goes even further, letting us know that, contrary to what we've seen in "Run Silent, Run Deep" and "Destination Tokyo", Submarines were cramped and dark, leaked water, were very slow, groaned under the pressure of the water above and, when surfaced, dipped and climbed on waves like a tin can. This is probably the only flick since "Das Boot" to convey just how impossible a job it was to fight in subs in WWII. It's no "Das Boot", but "U-571" now makes it impossible to watch any of those quaint and propaganda-laden movies made during the war.

Review:
Outstanding and gripping and action packed story, great script, great cinematography, fantastic performances (even by unknowns), fantastic sets, great Director's Commentary - Jonathan Mostow, (with additional cast and producer interviews), all star cast (see editors review above), great music... it just keeps going.

If you want a good solid war movie full of heroes giving their lives for the greater cause, this is it! And, if you are not a war movie fan.... it doesn't have the gruesome scenes that plague most war movies.

Story:
Early in WWII the US lost 25% of its merchant marine fleet (cargo ships) right off the Atlantic Coast. Nazi subs crushed the US efforts to support the European theater with war materials. A Nazi sub is disabled and floating in the middle of the Atlantic and it becomes a race against time to get the sub and its "enigma machine" - the coding device used to send undecipherable messages. Because of the allied shipping losses, the enigma machine is more valuable than the crew sent to collect it. Matthew McConaughey, has to confront his own weaknesses as he becomes skipper of the disabled sub when his American sub is sunk, killing his skipper ( Bill Paxton) and its crew. McConaughey is left with a handful of crew members, and a captured German crewman.

The story brings to life the reality and pain of decisions that must be made for the "greater good" during war, and unusual circumstances.

Really everything in the movie and the DVD was great, making this a very exceptional DVD movie.

Negatives:
Absolutely none! (Unless you don't like war movies).

I think the title of this review says it all. I lost count of the historical inaccuracies after the first ten minutes! Of course, the Germans were the brutal bunglers who cheated on zeir frauleins und vipped zeir dachsunds! No really, steer well clear of this disaster. If you wish to view a TRUE account of the Battle of the Atlantic as the sailors saw it, watch "Das Boot: The Director's Cut"...or better still, the unabridged version of the same movie.

In "U-571", the green crew of an obsolete USN submarine is plucked, while in bad need of R&R, for a highly secret mission that amounts to wartime piracy. It's 1942, dark days for the allies everywhere, and especially in the battle of the north Atlantic. Detecting a distress call from the crippled German submarine U-571, damaged during an attack that sent scores of allied ships to the bottom, Washington commandeers a tired "S-Boat" - a class of American submarine already obsolete by the outset of war - and orders its crew to seize the U-boat, her crew and especially the "Enigma". Enigma refers to a actual machine used by the Kriegsmarine to decode and encode messages to and from its warships. By capturing one of the machines, the allies hope to break the German codes and learn to navigate its ships around the Nazi subs which, stealth aside, are slow and very vulnerable. Lt. Commander Dahlgren's (an unusually serious Bill Paxton) obsolete sub is needed because newer subs are conspicuously larger than the smaller U-boats. (the plan requires the S-boat to impersonate a "friendly" U-boat responding to U-571's SOS). Ofcourse, nothing goes as planned, painfully so when it looks like the plan was beginning to work. Instead, after U-571 has been seized and its Enigma recovered, the U-571's actual sister-sub appears and sinks Dahlgren's boat, crew and all. Now, the survivors, under command of Lt. Andrew Tyler (Matthew McConaughey, also looking very severe, with a crewcut that shaves years off his life) must save U-571, learn the secret of driving the foreign sub and sail her across the Atlantic. Tyler is a whiz at subs, but he's unproven (a point Paxton's character makes when explaining why he didn't recommend him for command). Instead, he relies on Chief Klough (Harvey Keitel) to explain what "Sub School" could not. After narrowly defeating the other U-boat, Tyler and his crew settle on the slightly less impossible of their two plans - sail for England, getting as close as possible without being sighted...by anybody. On discovery of U-571's capture, the Germans are certain to modify their Enigmas, and the recovery of the sub will have been in vain. (discovery is less likely in an eastward course, even though it means sailing in waters swimming with U-boats). By the end of the flick, Tyler will have barely survived a game of "cat and mouse" with a German destroyer, and a game of "The Caine Mutiny" with his own crew.

This flick took a lot of lumps for realism stretches, though most are unearned. The film neglects to mention that the Brits recovered Enigma machines years before we Yanks. OTOH, the events of "U-571" are set about a year after the RN's daring and critical recovery of Nazi code machines and documents, so the flick isn't depicting Americans accomplishing something before England had (which would have been unlikely anyway since we weren't officially in the war at the time). Rather than re-writing history, the script merely ignores it, but that makes sense also given how under-wraps such an event would have been in wartime. A disclaimer, mentioning that Enigma machines and materials had already been recovered a year earlier would have made hash of the film's premise, in which Tyler's crew braves enemy-filled waters to preserve the secret of their recovery. Taking an unrealistic premise - Tyler and his crew assimilating the incredibly complicated and undeniably foreign ship - "U-571" works in a very realistic way, with the script showing how quick thinking and not a small amount of luck saved the day, and how narrowly Tyler and crew beat the odds. The cinematography goes even further, letting us know that, contrary to what we've seen in "Run Silent, Run Deep" and "Destination Tokyo", Submarines were cramped and dark, leaked water, were very slow, groaned under the pressure of the water above and, when surfaced, dipped and climbed on waves like a tin can. This is probably the only flick since "Das Boot" to convey just how impossible a job it was to fight in subs in WWII. It's no "Das Boot", but "U-571" now makes it impossible to watch any of those quaint and propaganda-laden movies made during the war.

Review:
Outstanding and gripping and action packed story, great script, great cinematography, fantastic performances (even by unknowns), fantastic sets, great Director's Commentary - Jonathan Mostow, (with additional cast and producer interviews), all star cast (see editors review above), great music... it just keeps going.

If you want a good solid war movie full of heroes giving their lives for the greater cause, this is it! And, if you are not a war movie fan.... it doesn't have the gruesome scenes that plague most war movies.

Story:
Early in WWII the US lost 25% of its merchant marine fleet (cargo ships) right off the Atlantic Coast. Nazi subs crushed the US efforts to support the European theater with war materials. A Nazi sub is disabled and floating in the middle of the Atlantic and it becomes a race against time to get the sub and its "enigma machine" - the coding device used to send undecipherable messages. Because of the allied shipping losses, the enigma machine is more valuable than the crew sent to collect it. Matthew McConaughey, has to confront his own weaknesses as he becomes skipper of the disabled sub when his American sub is sunk, killing his skipper ( Bill Paxton) and its crew. McConaughey is left with a handful of crew members, and a captured German crewman.

The story brings to life the reality and pain of decisions that must be made for the "greater good" during war, and unusual circumstances.

Really everything in the movie and the DVD was great, making this a very exceptional DVD movie.

Negatives:
Absolutely none! (Unless you don't like war movies).

I think the title of this review says it all. I lost count of the historical inaccuracies after the first ten minutes! Of course, the Germans were the brutal bunglers who cheated on zeir frauleins und vipped zeir dachsunds! No really, steer well clear of this disaster. If you wish to view a TRUE account of the Battle of the Atlantic as the sailors saw it, watch "Das Boot: The Director's Cut"...or better still, the unabridged version of the same movie.

In "U-571", the green crew of an obsolete USN submarine is plucked, while in bad need of R&R, for a highly secret mission that amounts to wartime piracy. It's 1942, dark days for the allies everywhere, and especially in the battle of the north Atlantic. Detecting a distress call from the crippled German submarine U-571, damaged during an attack that sent scores of allied ships to the bottom, Washington commandeers a tired "S-Boat" - a class of American submarine already obsolete by the outset of war - and orders its crew to seize the U-boat, her crew and especially the "Enigma". Enigma refers to a actual machine used by the Kriegsmarine to decode and encode messages to and from its warships. By capturing one of the machines, the allies hope to break the German codes and learn to navigate its ships around the Nazi subs which, stealth aside, are slow and very vulnerable. Lt. Commander Dahlgren's (an unusually serious Bill Paxton) obsolete sub is needed because newer subs are conspicuously larger than the smaller U-boats. (the plan requires the S-boat to impersonate a "friendly" U-boat responding to U-571's SOS). Ofcourse, nothing goes as planned, painfully so when it looks like the plan was beginning to work. Instead, after U-571 has been seized and its Enigma recovered, the U-571's actual sister-sub appears and sinks Dahlgren's boat, crew and all. Now, the survivors, under command of Lt. Andrew Tyler (Matthew McConaughey, also looking very severe, with a crewcut that shaves years off his life) must save U-571, learn the secret of driving the foreign sub and sail her across the Atlantic. Tyler is a whiz at subs, but he's unproven (a point Paxton's character makes when explaining why he didn't recommend him for command). Instead, he relies on Chief Klough (Harvey Keitel) to explain what "Sub School" could not. After narrowly defeating the other U-boat, Tyler and his crew settle on the slightly less impossible of their two plans - sail for England, getting as close as possible without being sighted...by anybody. On discovery of U-571's capture, the Germans are certain to modify their Enigmas, and the recovery of the sub will have been in vain. (discovery is less likely in an eastward course, even though it means sailing in waters swimming with U-boats). By the end of the flick, Tyler will have barely survived a game of "cat and mouse" with a German destroyer, and a game of "The Caine Mutiny" with his own crew.

This flick took a lot of lumps for realism stretches, though most are unearned. The film neglects to mention that the Brits recovered Enigma machines years before we Yanks. OTOH, the events of "U-571" are set about a year after the RN's daring and critical recovery of Nazi code machines and documents, so the flick isn't depicting Americans accomplishing something before England had (which would have been unlikely anyway since we weren't officially in the war at the time). Rather than re-writing history, the script merely ignores it, but that makes sense also given how under-wraps such an event would have been in wartime. A disclaimer, mentioning that Enigma machines and materials had already been recovered a year earlier would have made hash of the film's premise, in which Tyler's crew braves enemy-filled waters to preserve the secret of their recovery. Taking an unrealistic premise - Tyler and his crew assimilating the incredibly complicated and undeniably foreign ship - "U-571" works in a very realistic way, with the script showing how quick thinking and not a small amount of luck saved the day, and how narrowly Tyler and crew beat the odds. The cinematography goes even further, letting us know that, contrary to what we've seen in "Run Silent, Run Deep" and "Destination Tokyo", Submarines were cramped and dark, leaked water, were very slow, groaned under the pressure of the water above and, when surfaced, dipped and climbed on waves like a tin can. This is probably the only flick since "Das Boot" to convey just how impossible a job it was to fight in subs in WWII. It's no "Das Boot", but "U-571" now makes it impossible to watch any of those quaint and propaganda-laden movies made during the war.

Review:
Outstanding and gripping and action packed story, great script, great cinematography, fantastic performances (even by unknowns), fantastic sets, great Director's Commentary - Jonathan Mostow, (with additional cast and producer interviews), all star cast (see editors review above), great music... it just keeps going.

If you want a good solid war movie full of heroes giving their lives for the greater cause, this is it! And, if you are not a war movie fan.... it doesn't have the gruesome scenes that plague most war movies.

Story:
Early in WWII the US lost 25% of its merchant marine fleet (cargo ships) right off the Atlantic Coast. Nazi subs crushed the US efforts to support the European theater with war materials. A Nazi sub is disabled and floating in the middle of the Atlantic and it becomes a race against time to get the sub and its "enigma machine" - the coding device used to send undecipherable messages. Because of the allied shipping losses, the enigma machine is more valuable than the crew sent to collect it. Matthew McConaughey, has to confront his own weaknesses as he becomes skipper of the disabled sub when his American sub is sunk, killing his skipper ( Bill Paxton) and its crew. McConaughey is left with a handful of crew members, and a captured German crewman.

The story brings to life the reality and pain of decisions that must be made for the "greater good" during war, and unusual circumstances.

Really everything in the movie and the DVD was great, making this a very exceptional DVD movie.

Negatives:
Absolutely none! (Unless you don't like war movies).

I think the title of this review says it all. I lost count of the historical inaccuracies after the first ten minutes! Of course, the Germans were the brutal bunglers who cheated on zeir frauleins und vipped zeir dachsunds! No really, steer well clear of this disaster. If you wish to view a TRUE account of the Battle of the Atlantic as the sailors saw it, watch "Das Boot: The Director's Cut"...or better still, the unabridged version of the same movie.

In "U-571", the green crew of an obsolete USN submarine is plucked, while in bad need of R&R, for a highly secret mission that amounts to wartime piracy. It's 1942, dark days for the allies everywhere, and especially in the battle of the north Atlantic. Detecting a distress call from the crippled German submarine U-571, damaged during an attack that sent scores of allied ships to the bottom, Washington commandeers a tired "S-Boat" - a class of American submarine already obsolete by the outset of war - and orders its crew to seize the U-boat, her crew and especially the "Enigma". Enigma refers to a actual machine used by the Kriegsmarine to decode and encode messages to and from its warships. By capturing one of the machines, the allies hope to break the German codes and learn to navigate its ships around the Nazi subs which, stealth aside, are slow and very vulnerable. Lt. Commander Dahlgren's (an unusually serious Bill Paxton) obsolete sub is needed because newer subs are conspicuously larger than the smaller U-boats. (the plan requires the S-boat to impersonate a "friendly" U-boat responding to U-571's SOS). Ofcourse, nothing goes as planned, painfully so when it looks like the plan was beginning to work. Instead, after U-571 has been seized and its Enigma recovered, the U-571's actual sister-sub appears and sinks Dahlgren's boat, crew and all. Now, the survivors, under command of Lt. Andrew Tyler (Matthew McConaughey, also looking very severe, with a crewcut that shaves years off his life) must save U-571, learn the secret of driving the foreign sub and sail her across the Atlantic. Tyler is a whiz at subs, but he's unproven (a point Paxton's character makes when explaining why he didn't recommend him for command). Instead, he relies on Chief Klough (Harvey Keitel) to explain what "Sub School" could not. After narrowly defeating the other U-boat, Tyler and his crew settle on the slightly less impossible of their two plans - sail for England, getting as close as possible without being sighted...by anybody. On discovery of U-571's capture, the Germans are certain to modify their Enigmas, and the recovery of the sub will have been in vain. (discovery is less likely in an eastward course, even though it means sailing in waters swimming with U-boats). By the end of the flick, Tyler will have barely survived a game of "cat and mouse" with a German destroyer, and a game of "The Caine Mutiny" with his own crew.

This flick took a lot of lumps for realism stretches, though most are unearned. The film neglects to mention that the Brits recovered Enigma machines years before we Yanks. OTOH, the events of "U-571" are set about a year after the RN's daring and critical recovery of Nazi code machines and documents, so the flick isn't depicting Americans accomplishing something before England had (which would have been unlikely anyway since we weren't officially in the war at the time). Rather than re-writing history, the script merely ignores it, but that makes sense also given how under-wraps such an event would have been in wartime. A disclaimer, mentioning that Enigma machines and materials had already been recovered a year earlier would have made hash of the film's premise, in which Tyler's crew braves enemy-filled waters to preserve the secret of their recovery. Taking an unrealistic premise - Tyler and his crew assimilating the incredibly complicated and undeniably foreign ship - "U-571" works in a very realistic way, with the script showing how quick thinking and not a small amount of luck saved the day, and how narrowly Tyler and crew beat the odds. The cinematography goes even further, letting us know that, contrary to what we've seen in "Run Silent, Run Deep" and "Destination Tokyo", Submarines were cramped and dark, leaked water, were very slow, groaned under the pressure of the water above and, when surfaced, dipped and climbed on waves like a tin can. This is probably the only flick since "Das Boot" to convey just how impossible a job it was to fight in subs in WWII. It's no "Das Boot", but "U-571" now makes it impossible to watch any of those quaint and propaganda-laden movies made during the war.

Review:
Outstanding and gripping and action packed story, great script, great cinematography, fantastic performances (even by unknowns), fantastic sets, great Director's Commentary - Jonathan Mostow, (with additional cast and producer interviews), all star cast (see editors review above), great music... it just keeps going.

If you want a good solid war movie full of heroes giving their lives for the greater cause, this is it! And, if you are not a war movie fan.... it doesn't have the gruesome scenes that plague most war movies.

Story:
Early in WWII the US lost 25% of its merchant marine fleet (cargo ships) right off the Atlantic Coast. Nazi subs crushed the US efforts to support the European theater with war materials. A Nazi sub is disabled and floating in the middle of the Atlantic and it becomes a race against time to get the sub and its "enigma machine" - the coding device used to send undecipherable messages. Because of the allied shipping losses, the enigma machine is more valuable than the crew sent to collect it. Matthew McConaughey, has to confront his own weaknesses as he becomes skipper of the disabled sub when his American sub is sunk, killing his skipper ( Bill Paxton) and its crew. McConaughey is left with a handful of crew members, and a captured German crewman.

The story brings to life the reality and pain of decisions that must be made for the "greater good" during war, and unusual circumstances.

Really everything in the movie and the DVD was great, making this a very exceptional DVD movie.

Negatives:
Absolutely none! (Unless you don't like war movies).

After several failed attempts at acting in starring roles that were all critical/box office duds, Madonna decided to pick herself up by her bra straps and give a real, intense acting performance. True Madonna has shown some acting skill in the past with such roles as trampy free spirit Susan in "Desperately Seeking Susan", frisky baseball player "All The Way" Mae Mordabito in "A League Of Their Own" and the sexy, complicated chauntesse Breathless Mahoney in "Dick Tracy" but all of those roles were supporting and Madonna has proven herself adept at doing her best work when the pressure isn't on her to deliver the goods. Leading roles in SHANGHAI SURPRISE, WHO'S THAT GIRL?, BODY OF EVIDENCE and THE NEXT BEST THING, have all ended in catastrophe damaging Madonna's ever shaky movie career each time. But after the debacle of Body of Evidence, the underappreciated EROTICA album and the mega-selling but shame inducing SEX book, Madonna's career was at an all time nadir and she was basically pronounced dead as a doorknob by all her critics and detractors. With DANGEROUS GAME, Madonna gave her all in an intense, raw, from the gut performance which was definently overlooked by the public. As Sarah Jennings, TV starlet given the lead role in a dark, moody art film about the disintegration of a marriage, Madonna shines in a role that truly displays her talents. As Claire, Madonna also revealed a vulnerable and haunting side to her persona, which stays with any viewer of the movie long after the credits roll. You remember the rumors of domestic abuse that swirled around Madonna's 80's marriage to bad boy actor Sean Penn and you wonder if she was reliving her traumas through Claire. Who knows, but Madonna is genuine and real and has feelings and emotions and displays them wonderfully. The film however didn't really stand up as well as Madonna's performance but it will forever be remembered as the movie that gave Madonna some of her acting credibility. (This movie by the way preceded Madonna's Golden Globe award-winning, critically hailed performance as Eva Peron in EVITA )

After the critical panning of the majority of Madonna's films it is easy to dismiss this seemingly insignificant little indie as nothing more than another one of her mistakes or attempts to shock. However, unlike the truly awful Body Of Evidence Dangerous Game does feature a strong storyline and great performances both from Madonna and Harvey Keitel.

Madonna looks more stunning than ever as Sarah Jennings the tragic talentless actress who is referred to by Keitel as "The womanwho can't act". The role is probably not unlike Madonna herself in some ways, although she definately is not talentless, as she endures much abuse in the film as was rumoured she experienced in the late 80's while married to Sean Penn. I suspect this is probably so as such an emotionally raw performance could not be achieved with some drawing and delving into personal experience.

Dangerous Game proves without doubt that the Material girl can act and it is just a shame that the rest of the movie does not hold up to her incredible performance. Abel Ferrara direction is not at it's best and the editing is also very shoddy. The film also features lashings of sex, swearing, violence and rape and this is likely to offend many viewers but if you can cope with that then the movie is a must see not just for Madonna fans but also for anyone who enjoys a good unpredictable thriller. Go rent it!!! Now come on you know you want to!

This is a good films, although it barely released in 1993. People don' like this film because of Madonna is in it. They assume that it's a worst film. In fact, it's a film that makes people think of something serious in their life. Each character experienced and reflected their choice in the way of Hurly-burly and the of doubtfulness, and then can not distinguish what it's going on around them.

Madonna dose decent job in this film, so dose James Russo. It's not a typical Hollywood film. One should examine it if one has connected with reality and with understanding.

I saw this film in 1993 of Venice film festival, and I still remember it after decade. I do think I hardly see great performance in actors after this film.

After several failed attempts at acting in starring roles that were all critical/box office duds, Madonna decided to pick herself up by her bra straps and give a real, intense acting performance. True Madonna has shown some acting skill in the past with such roles as trampy free spirit Susan in "Desperately Seeking Susan", frisky baseball player "All The Way" Mae Mordabito in "A League Of Their Own" and the sexy, complicated chauntesse Breathless Mahoney in "Dick Tracy" but all of those roles were supporting and Madonna has proven herself adept at doing her best work when the pressure isn't on her to deliver the goods. Leading roles in SHANGHAI SURPRISE, WHO'S THAT GIRL?, BODY OF EVIDENCE and THE NEXT BEST THING, have all ended in catastrophe damaging Madonna's ever shaky movie career each time. But after the debacle of Body of Evidence, the underappreciated EROTICA album and the mega-selling but shame inducing SEX book, Madonna's career was at an all time nadir and she was basically pronounced dead as a doorknob by all her critics and detractors. With DANGEROUS GAME, Madonna gave her all in an intense, raw, from the gut performance which was definently overlooked by the public. As Sarah Jennings, TV starlet given the lead role in a dark, moody art film about the disintegration of a marriage, Madonna shines in a role that truly displays her talents. As Claire, Madonna also revealed a vulnerable and haunting side to her persona, which stays with any viewer of the movie long after the credits roll. You remember the rumors of domestic abuse that swirled around Madonna's 80's marriage to bad boy actor Sean Penn and you wonder if she was reliving her traumas through Claire. Who knows, but Madonna is genuine and real and has feelings and emotions and displays them wonderfully. The film however didn't really stand up as well as Madonna's performance but it will forever be remembered as the movie that gave Madonna some of her acting credibility. (This movie by the way preceded Madonna's Golden Globe award-winning, critically hailed performance as Eva Peron in EVITA )

After the critical panning of the majority of Madonna's films it is easy to dismiss this seemingly insignificant little indie as nothing more than another one of her mistakes or attempts to shock. However, unlike the truly awful Body Of Evidence Dangerous Game does feature a strong storyline and great performances both from Madonna and Harvey Keitel.

Madonna looks more stunning than ever as Sarah Jennings the tragic talentless actress who is referred to by Keitel as "The womanwho can't act". The role is probably not unlike Madonna herself in some ways, although she definately is not talentless, as she endures much abuse in the film as was rumoured she experienced in the late 80's while married to Sean Penn. I suspect this is probably so as such an emotionally raw performance could not be achieved with some drawing and delving into personal experience.

Dangerous Game proves without doubt that the Material girl can act and it is just a shame that the rest of the movie does not hold up to her incredible performance. Abel Ferrara direction is not at it's best and the editing is also very shoddy. The film also features lashings of sex, swearing, violence and rape and this is likely to offend many viewers but if you can cope with that then the movie is a must see not just for Madonna fans but also for anyone who enjoys a good unpredictable thriller. Go rent it!!! Now come on you know you want to!

This is a good films, although it barely released in 1993. People don' like this film because of Madonna is in it. They assume that it's a worst film. In fact, it's a film that makes people think of something serious in their life. Each character experienced and reflected their choice in the way of Hurly-burly and the of doubtfulness, and then can not distinguish what it's going on around them.

Madonna dose decent job in this film, so dose James Russo. It's not a typical Hollywood film. One should examine it if one has connected with reality and with understanding.

I saw this film in 1993 of Venice film festival, and I still remember it after decade. I do think I hardly see great performance in actors after this film.

After several failed attempts at acting in starring roles that were all critical/box office duds, Madonna decided to pick herself up by her bra straps and give a real, intense acting performance. True Madonna has shown some acting skill in the past with such roles as trampy free spirit Susan in "Desperately Seeking Susan", frisky baseball player "All The Way" Mae Mordabito in "A League Of Their Own" and the sexy, complicated chauntesse Breathless Mahoney in "Dick Tracy" but all of those roles were supporting and Madonna has proven herself adept at doing her best work when the pressure isn't on her to deliver the goods. Leading roles in SHANGHAI SURPRISE, WHO'S THAT GIRL?, BODY OF EVIDENCE and THE NEXT BEST THING, have all ended in catastrophe damaging Madonna's ever shaky movie career each time. But after the debacle of Body of Evidence, the underappreciated EROTICA album and the mega-selling but shame inducing SEX book, Madonna's career was at an all time nadir and she was basically pronounced dead as a doorknob by all her critics and detractors. With DANGEROUS GAME, Madonna gave her all in an intense, raw, from the gut performance which was definently overlooked by the public. As Sarah Jennings, TV starlet given the lead role in a dark, moody art film about the disintegration of a marriage, Madonna shines in a role that truly displays her talents. As Claire, Madonna also revealed a vulnerable and haunting side to her persona, which stays with any viewer of the movie long after the credits roll. You remember the rumors of domestic abuse that swirled around Madonna's 80's marriage to bad boy actor Sean Penn and you wonder if she was reliving her traumas through Claire. Who knows, but Madonna is genuine and real and has feelings and emotions and displays them wonderfully. The film however didn't really stand up as well as Madonna's performance but it will forever be remembered as the movie that gave Madonna some of her acting credibility. (This movie by the way preceded Madonna's Golden Globe award-winning, critically hailed performance as Eva Peron in EVITA )

After the critical panning of the majority of Madonna's films it is easy to dismiss this seemingly insignificant little indie as nothing more than another one of her mistakes or attempts to shock. However, unlike the truly awful Body Of Evidence Dangerous Game does feature a strong storyline and great performances both from Madonna and Harvey Keitel.

Madonna looks more stunning than ever as Sarah Jennings the tragic talentless actress who is referred to by Keitel as "The womanwho can't act". The role is probably not unlike Madonna herself in some ways, although she definately is not talentless, as she endures much abuse in the film as was rumoured she experienced in the late 80's while married to Sean Penn. I suspect this is probably so as such an emotionally raw performance could not be achieved with some drawing and delving into personal experience.

Dangerous Game proves without doubt that the Material girl can act and it is just a shame that the rest of the movie does not hold up to her incredible performance. Abel Ferrara direction is not at it's best and the editing is also very shoddy. The film also features lashings of sex, swearing, violence and rape and this is likely to offend many viewers but if you can cope with that then the movie is a must see not just for Madonna fans but also for anyone who enjoys a good unpredictable thriller. Go rent it!!! Now come on you know you want to!

This is a good films, although it barely released in 1993. People don' like this film because of Madonna is in it. They assume that it's a worst film. In fact, it's a film that makes people think of something serious in their life. Each character experienced and reflected their choice in the way of Hurly-burly and the of doubtfulness, and then can not distinguish what it's going on around them.

Madonna dose decent job in this film, so dose James Russo. It's not a typical Hollywood film. One should examine it if one has connected with reality and with understanding.

I saw this film in 1993 of Venice film festival, and I still remember it after decade. I do think I hardly see great performance in actors after this film.

First, I wanted to see this movie because of I heard Sean Connery played a mentor on Japanese customs to Wesley Snipes in a homicide investigation-and I thought "How interesting!", but after watching it, I felt the plot was disjointed, and choppy, and the dialogue was constipated.
The movie does not flow well at all. I have not read the book, but I have heard it is better than the movie (as usual), and I do like Chricton's work. Still, I found this movie slow, and wondering what the point was.

There's no question that the novel upon which this movie is based is infinitely more complex and subtle. That being said -- when isn't that true in a comparison between paper and film?

Moving on to the film itself... the story is ostensibly about a young woman found murdered in a Japanese corporation's hq during a major gala. This main plot intersects with the secondary plot about this same corporation's controversial impending buy-out of a major American chip manufacturing company, thus potentially putting American secrets into Japanese hands.

What the movie is really about, of course, is the buy-out of an impoverished, corrupt, lazy, disorganized, and short-sighted America by the evil, manipulative, unfeeling, unsportsmanlike, and well, un-American, Japanese. There's no question that the anti-Japanese tone of Crighton's novel is carried directly to the screen.

That being said, this is a fairly interesting murder mystery, with lots of good red herrings and complex strategy involved in solving the case. It also has some interesting predictive scenes about the easy manipulation of video technology -- cutting edge in 1993, but commonplace now.

Sean Connery is his smooth, masterful self in this movie, and Wesley Snipes, while not given much to do except react in bafflement to both the Japanese and his new mentor, does the best he can.

The film is a bit long, but a perfectly satisfactory rental, esp. if you like Connery or Snipes.

Michael Crichton's RISING SUN (and that's both movie and book) is sheer brilliance. Unfortunately for the average American moviegoer, this is a flick too loaded with subtleties and hidden clues to appeal to someone who's used to more explosions, shootouts, and decisive final confrontations. You must pay close attention to every line of dialogue in order to keep up, and in this the average viewer is going to lose interest. Which is a pity, as you are kept guessing throughout --it's presented in such a way as to enable you to see the point of view of almost every character. Snipes and Connery work extremely well off each other, Harvey Keitel plods through his usual role, Cary Tagawa shines as the unfortunate fall guy stuck between East and West, Tia Carrere proves that she's MUCH more than mere 'Wayne's World' eye candy, and the film's few deviations from the novel do not detract from the suspense --they actually help to keep the plot moving.

Don't believe the reviews --this movie is most emphatically NOT racist Japan-bashing; in fact such a reaction is even anticipated within the narrative. An excellent treatise on the mindset of the Japanese corporate and how ill-equipped American culture/politics is in dealing with it. Not overly violent, but there is a considerable amount of sensuality and a disturbing murder scene that, of necessity, is replayed over and over throughout the film --definitely not for children.