The Last Samurai (Cinema: January 2004)

There are a plethora of reasons to hate this film - the patronizing American interpretation of Japanese nobility & tradition, Tom Cruise prancing around with a sword spouting old-fashioned ethics & humble pretentions from a card prompt, the whole soft focus, grand scope, gimme an oscar posturing, the inevitable slow-motion final battle scene complete with cherry blossom blowing in the wind...it's all here. The only surprise is, it's actually quite good.

The Last Samurai is everything you'd expect from a Zwick/Cruise collaboration. It looks great, is well made, doesn't offend & delivers the odd tear for the sake of melodrama. In fact, its pretty faultless in light of much of HW's current output. Sure, the presence of Cruise guarantees a heavy dose of uni-centric characterization, marginalizing some more interesting turns from his castmates (the show-stealing Billy Connolly dies in the first 15 minutes & the character of Ouiji is successfully curtailed by the language barrier), yet the ego remains in check for the most part. The end is as you might expect from Hollywood yet Zwick, who's not afraid to hold back the feelgood (anyone that's seen Glory will understand), keeps us on tenterhooks.

A nice distraction for 2 1/2 hours, not overly historical or accurate but an entertaining, profficiently dealt-with introductory vignette to an infinitely more interesting subject matter.

RATING:

(c)Limer 2004