Overall Rating
 Awesome: 52.73%
Worth A Look: 23.83%
Average: 8.98%
Pretty Bad: 8.98%
Total Crap: 5.47%
11 reviews, 190 user ratings
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| Last Samurai, The |
by Erik Childress
"What's Old Is New And Maybe Even Better"
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As a film critic, movie lover, etc., you pride yourself on trying to see it all and chances are you HAVE seen it all, since just about every idea has been explored, remade, reimagined, and spewed back out before you can say “ka-ching”. We conciliate ourselves on rehashed material with phrases like “it’s not the outcome, it’s the journey” and revel in the positives outweighing the negatives as we admit it not being the most original of ideas. In the case of The Last Samurai, all I can say is that I’m guilty in the first degree of loving a new film based on an old idea.Tom Cruise is Nathan Algren, a civil war hero who in 1876 is biding his time with the bottle and hawking the latest-and-greatest rifles in a carnival-like sideshow. His good friend, Sgt. Zebulon Gant (Billy Connolly), finds him and introduces him to a Japanese officer (Masato Harada) who is looking for someone to train an army to stop an uprising that will set back the government’s plan for progression. Algren is less than thrilled to be again in the company of his former commander, Col. Benjamin Bagly (Tony Goldwyn), who has a Custer complex that put Nathan at odds with his own conscience.
In Japan, while in the midst of training the group of hopelessly inexperienced draftees, impatience leads to a slaughter and brings Algren to the attention of Samurai leader Katsumoto (Ken Watanabe), as his captive. Katsumoto admires Algren’s bravery in the face of certain death and wants to understand his enemy by reading his diary and engaging in “conversations” with him. Algren’s custody makes him more a guest than a traditional P.O.W. and it allows him to adapt to the village’s way of life, learn some new fighting techniques, and in turn come to understand the people he was made to believe were HIS enemy.
If substituting Kevin Costner and a handful of Indians ain’t that far a stretch in your mind, then chances are you may even recognize bits of director Edward Zwick’s own Glory on display. Both films are part of the long Hollywood tradition of great white moviestars on hand to either learn from or help a minority culture unfamiliar to an ignorant Western audience. It’s equally ignorant to just focus on this one particular aspect and allow it to eclipse what is an amazingly well-told story.
Watanabe commands the part of Katsumoto with such conviction that Cruise’s Algren just about becomes the little voice inside his head as if he doesn’t exist at all. Cruise isn’t to be faulted for his performance, since even as he allows himself more than a few Cruise-in-full-samurai-pose moments, he all but gives the film to Watanabe, who easily recalls the strength of Kurosawa’s clan of actors and dominates the film. Anyone who believes the title refers to Algren is dead wrong.
Those who believe Zwick is being impertinent to the Japanese culture or the politics of the day with the Great White Cruise factor aren't paying attention to what he is being respectful to, which is the mythic aspect of this ancient period. Having already paid tribute to Kurosawa with his Rashomon-updating Courage Under Fire, Zwick creates an ode to the master with calls to duty, splendid battle sequences and a look by cinematographer John Toll (The Thin Red Line) that captures the period in a way that could be hung in an art museum and is impossible to look away from.
The Last Samurai is so strong in its storytelling prowess that taking Cruise out of this equation likely wouldn’t hurt it at all. It also wouldn’t necessarily improve it except to appease those transfixed on that factor to begin with. The end-of-an-era sensibility that permeates it is an important one as modern times bring about the rise of convenience and all but eliminate the concept of honor. The old East of man-to-man, up-close-and-personal with blades has no reservations about moving into a more efficient, if Cowardly Lion-like future with the West’s fascination with guns.
The screenplay by Zwick, Marshall Herskovitz and John Logan keeps the story moving so well that it almost blindly brushes past the potential criticism of past effort comparisons. Algren’s journey runs nearly parallel with that of Costner’s John Dunbar, throwing in a mighty second-in-command warrior who hates this intruder and a burgeoning relationship with the woman (Koyuki) whose husband he killed. Zwick’s Glory is also reminisced with the new conscripts' first battle test in the forest and someone to hold onto Algren’s writings before a suicidal final attack. Goldwyn’s commander is also an extension of Cliff DeYoung’s single-minded slaughterer from that Civil War epic.The Last Samurai casts such a spell with its beauty, performances and four solid action sequences that it's easy to forget and even easier to forgive its derivative nature. If the film manages to have one flaw, it is to give credence to the naysayers’ foundation with a final ten minutes that necessitates a need for a happier ending and cries out for the “white man teaches others how to live” argument. I’d hate to think that Algren was indirectly responsible for Pearl Harbor nearly 60 years later. Tradition will go on. Hollywood will continue making these kinds of films and the ghosts of the naysayers will echo in my mind long after I’m dead. As long as they make them as good as this, I don’t care.
link directly to this review at http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=8374&reviewer=198
originally posted: 12/05/03 17:01:59
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This film is available for download or online viewing at CinemaNow.com For more in the CinemaNow.com series, click here.
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USA
05-Dec-2003 (R)
DVD: 04-May-2004
UK
N/A
Australia
15-Jan-2004
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