Waterloo

Genre:  Drama/History/War

 

Rating:  PG (for mild language and battle sequences)

 

Personal Rating:  4 Stars

***

 

    

    Christopher Plummer stars as the dour yet dogged Duke of Wellington who must pit his outnumbered troops against the forces of Napoleon Bonaparte, who recently escaped from captivity on the Isle of Elba. The two armies converge on a rain-drenched Belgian field near Waterloo, and Wellington determines to hold his position until Prussian troops arrive to defeat the French Emperor once and for all. 

     Napoleon, meanwhile, broods about his future and causes more trouble for himself by issuing impulsive commands to his officers. Several sub-plots in the film include one about dashing young British officer who is haunted by premonitions of his own death and another about a cheeky Enniskillen Dragoon who is always getting into mischief. 

    Waterloo is one of those quinisentially British movies with a sense of dark humor underpinning the dialogue. Wellington is cracking witicisms right and left as shells burst around him, revealing the stiff-upper-lip cool under fire of his class and country. Indeed, this is sometimes taken to a humorous extreme, and while Wellington was certainly known to have an acerbi wit, I highly doubt the banter continued quite as light-heartedly throughout one of the most intense battles of world history! 

     The British have always enjoyed gallows humor, and portraying themselves as possessing it, but this unrealistic flippancy risked turning Wellington into a comic relief figure in contrast with the brooding and intense Napolean. Ultimately it didn’t do justice to the complexity of his own multi-faceted personality, and he become something of a characature for his nation.  

     In spite of this, Christopher Plummer makes up for the early fooling around by demonstrating his amazing acting ability in later stages of the battle. This is most apparent when trying to demonstrate Wellington’s increased distain for war. It starts when the young officer he has been trying to protect stands up in the middle of a British square to encourage his men, shouting “Think of England! Think of England!” He is shot in the head by a French soldier, and falls dead. Wellington stares blankly at the spot where he fell, and the unreadable expression on his face speaks volumes. 

     Later, a second young aid is shot in the back immediately after Wellington gives him an order. He staggers forward several paces in agony, trying gallatnly to stay on his feet, before finally collapsing in the arms of some nearby soldiers. This time, Wellington cannot even look, and awkwardly turns his eyes down, blinking nervously and swallowing hard. Its becoming increasingly apparent by his body language that his struggle to avoid displaying emotion is becoming harder.  

     Then in the last moments of the battle, when Wellington finally has cause to celebrate after turning the tide, his friend Lord Uxbridge reels in his saddle and cries out, “My God, sir…I have lost my leg!” Wellington does not even look at the leg, but rather stares at the man’s face with a look of shock and horror, still struggling to supress his own emotions. “My God, sir,” he murmurs, in a daze. “So you have.” Then he supports Uxbridge as he falls against him, and cries out for a medic.  

     Finally, Wellington struggles to deal with the fact that his Prussian allies are far more set on vengence against the French then his own troops, and set about butchering them without mercy. Wellington tries to play the gentleman, and procure the surrender from a group of French survivors who are determined to resist. As he waits for the answer from the survivors, it is obvious how tense he is, hoping beyond hope they will take the mercy offered. They don’t, and he is forced to use the artillery on them. Once again, he closes his eyes, and looks down.  

     At the very end of the film, we get to see Wellington one more time, riding about the field, littered with wounded and dying men and horses, as scavengers pull the clothes off the bodies. Again, his face is almost a complete blank, scanning the horrific scene. Then suddenly, his eyes fall on a young Scotsman, lying dead in his kilt, with his pipes lying near him. The wail of the pipes is heard, as if in a flash of Wellington’s memory, the music builds, and he has a visible surge of emotion, which he manages to pull himself out of with the greatest struggle, before riding off the field. Through all this, you get the feeling that the initially haughty and unapproachable Wellington, and witty and dapper nobleman who never gets flustered, is far more human and relatable than all that. First appearances can indeed be deceiving.  

    The battle footage is spectacular, but the movie also spends time on the uneventful periods between the fighting. Since this is a European production, the pacing is slightly different from what most Americans are accustomed to. It's more introspective and internal, giving one insight into the thoughts of the characters as well as their actions. 

    Some people find the lulls in the plot to be boring, but I think they let the viewers get a good taste of all dimensions of the conflict, both physical and emotional. Also, it gives the viewer the chance to catch a glimpse of the hum-drum duties of early 19th century soldiering.  

     The traditional British folk-songs such as “Macpherson’s Farewell”, “Boney Was a Warrior,” and “The Girl I Left Behind Me” that are weaved into the scenes are also a nice flavoring. I definitely think this film a nice overview of the last phase of the Napoleonic Wars that culminated in 1815. History lovers will be thrilled.

 

 

The Duke of Wellington (Christopher Plummer) at the ball in Brussels

 

Kidnapped

Year:  1995

Filming:  Color

Length: 155 minutes

Genre:  Action/Adventure/Drama

Maturity:  PG (for intense thematic elements)

Cast:  Brian McCardie (David Balfour), Armand Assante (Alan Breck Stewart), Patrick Malahide (Ebenezer Balfour), Michael Kitchen (William Reed), Adam Blackwood (Captain Forbes), Brian Blessed (Cluny MacPherson), Brian McGrath (James Stewart of the Glen), Brendan Gleeson (Colin Campbell, “The Red Fox”), Antoine Byrne (Mary MacDonald of Dunbrae), Catherine Byrne (Flora)

Director:  Ivan Passer

Personal Rating:  4 Stars

***

    As a Scottish/British history buff, I often lament the shoddy depiction of the Jacobite Rebellions on screen. They are reduced politically-driven drivel about the evil English and their attempts to subjugate the independent-minded Scots. All the nuances of the period are shunted to the wayside, which irks me to no end. However, I am pleased to report that this version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic adventure story Kidnapped does a fair job staying true to history for us buffs, and making it exciting for the public at large.

    Brian McCardie stars as Davie Balfour, a young gentleman from the Lowlands of Scotland, coming of age in the mid-18^th century. Upon the death of his father, he goes in search of his long-lost uncle Ebenezer, who has been hoarding his rightful inheritance by pretending to be the elder of the two brothers, when in fact he was the younger one. Still, after some investigating and surviving nearly falling through a broken stair-well (yes…it’s a set-up!), he manages to get Ebenezer to promise him some share in the family fortune. Instead, the all-too-trusting Davy winds up being kidnapped and sold into slavery on board a ship headed for the Americas. 

    But his course is interrupted when Alan Breck Stuart, a Jacobite exile on a mission to France, boards the ship and bargains for safe passage. Thrown together by mutiny and shipwreck, Davie and Alan are washed ashore on the Scottish Highlands where they must learn to trust one another if they except to survive in an atmosphere of political tension and military occupation in the aftermath of the failed Jacobite rising of 1745.  

     Davie is determined to return to the Lowlands and reclaim his rightful inheritance; Alan is set on getting to France and delivering money to finance the Jacobite cause. Even though their perspectives clash and they find it difficult to get along, circumstances pull them together after they are both framed for assassinating Red Campbell “the Fox”, a powerful pro-government laird shot down on the road. With no hope of being acquitted in a land dominated by brutal martial law, Davie and Alan set off on a race across the Highlands to avoid capture by redcoat troops.

     But the stakes are raised when the murder of Campbell the Fox is blamed on James Stewart of the Glen, Alan Breck’s surrogate father. Eager to prove his innocence, Alan Breck goes in search of the real killer with the legally-astute Davie in toe. But when James is captured and cruelly executed, the goal changes from a rescue mission to fulfilling a vendetta. Along the way, the unlikely pair enlists the aid of Mary MacDonald of Dunbrae, a young lady who Davie begins to fancy, in spite of their initial clash of customs and beliefs. They also meet with the rowdy Cluny MacPherson in his mountain stronghold called “Cluny’s Cage”.

    There is danger aplenty as they stay one step ahead of William Reed, a ruthless government official from London obsessed with capturing Alan, using any means at his disposal to do so. Along with Reed is Captain Forbes, a young British officer whose desperation for promotion stifles the dictates of his conscience. But an unexpected twist ultimately makes him vitally important in deciding the fates of Davie and Alan as they reenter the Lowlands, hell-bent on reclaiming Davie’s rightful inheritance and avenge James of the Glen. In the process, they learn that friendship can be developed in the most trying of circumstances, and in spite of many differences, unity can be forged.

   

     I found this version of Kidnapped to be a good adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic novel about the aftermath of the Jacobite Risings. Although it does stray from the book in various places, I think it manages to do so with skill, building subplots that succeed in enhancing the main storyline rather than demolishing it. I also think that this version does a fair job in keeping with the proper terminology of the historical period, which is refreshing in comparison with some later versions that rely heavily on the "bad English/good Scottish" stereotype and overlook the complexities of the rebellions.

    Of course, there were still historical inaccuracies. It’s a fact that no one knows for sure who murdered Campbell the Fox, and inserting a fictional character to blame it on doesn’t really solve the mystery…although I could almost believe that a government official might have. And were they seriously trying to say that Alan Breck had an illegitimate child with Flora MacDonald? Or was this a totally different Flora they had make a debut? That whole sequence was really awkwardly explained! I appreciate it was trying to point out the difference in a man and a woman’s perspective on the ongoing strife, but still!

      I appreciate the way Davie is shown as maintaining his position as a government supporter while at the same coming to be more sympathetic towards the Jacobites, as opposed to “going rebel”, as the 2010 version indicates. I particularly liked the scene in which he made a case that the rebellion was over, and Scotland had made her choice for King George, the Whig administration, and with it the Act of Union. It quite reminded me of the current conflict in Scotland over the issue of independence, and how some people refuse to give up the ghost on the matter or acknowledge the will of the majority in a “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity to decide the matter.

     On the other hand, Alan is shown as being continually loyal to Jacobitism and “the king across the water” while at the same time coming to better understand the logic of the government supporters, and the realization that the future lies with them. Over the course of their adventures together, Davie manages to successfully demonstrate that his law-abiding position is a logical one, even as we cannot help but agree with Alan Breck’s insistence that he should get some more “poetry in his soul.” Another part of the movie that I liked was the way that both characters have different ideas about what it means to be a “Christian gentleman”, and yet each one knows the importance of it. It seems that Alan is a Catholic (he makes the sign of the cross in one scene), and Davie is a Presbyterian, and yet both learn to respect each other and their mutual dedication to honor. My only complaint is the way the two parted in the end; it was so cut-dry, after all they had been through together! A little emotion was needed!

    The acting overall was fair enough. Brian McCardie and Armand Assante make an excellent team, sparring with wit and ultimately swords (all in good humor!). I simply love McCardie’s rich Scottish accent, and the way that when he is frustrated, he forces himself to speak through a plastered grin! Assante also brought Alan Breck Stuart to life as a rugged yet lovable rogue, very human and able to tug at the hearts of the audience through his tragic heroism in a lost cause. And who could pick a better British villain than Michael Kitchen? Okay, so those who know me well know that I was a fan of his role as terrifyingly imperturbable Judge Jeffries in Lorna Doone, and he does not disappoint as the sardonic, sarcastic, ever-smirking, black-clad William Reed in Kidnapped.

    This is a made-for-TV movie, so perfection is not to be grasped at. However, the scenery shots are beautiful, with the hills and glens all wonderfully wild and resonating with Celtic connotations. Indeed, it taps into that very inner poetry that Alan is so desperate to get Davie to acknowledge (the artist in me has tried that with many-a-stiff-necked doldrum…;-) Period costuming was also very good, and I especially liked the red-coat uniforms (don't I always?!). Unfortunately, the music track, which repeated itself over and over again throughout the film, was certainly lacking and sometimes sounded like it was pounded out on a cheesy studio keyboard! The 2010 version certainly had a catchier theme, although I will say there were several moments of musical grace involving a stirring whistle tune, and a few bagpipe interludes.

     So I would definitely rate this movie as an enjoyable historical adventure flick with a good plot-line, memorable characters, and some lovely scenery snap-shots. As I’ve often mentioned in the past, it’s interesting that little-known, small-budget productions actually do a better job with historical retellings than big-budget Hollywood-ized block-busters. Without all the schmaltz, there is time to be more subtle in exploring the characters and time periods in which they live and work and fight and bond with one another. Robert Louis Stevenson was a great author, and he deftly managed to capture a complex time period in Scottish history through his novel Kidnapped. I think this movie adaption, although certainly not perfect, did a good job keeping in line with the spirit of the original work.

Cluny McPherson (Brian Blessed) shares a drink with Alan Breck Stuart (Armande Assante)

Heaven Is For Real

Year:  2014

Filming:  Color

Length: 155 minutes

Genre:  Christian/Drama/Inspirational

Maturity:  PG (for intense thematic elements)

Cast:  Greg Kinnear (Todd Burpo), Kelly Reilly (Sonja Burpo), Connor Corum (Colton Burpo), Lane Styles (Cassie Burpo), Margo Martindale (Nancy Rawling), Jacob Vargas (Michael), Nancy Sorel (Dr. Charlotte Slater), Julia Arkos (Newspaper Reporter), Ursula Clark (Painting Girl), Mike Mohrhardt (Jesus)

Director:  Randall Wallace

Personal Rating:  2 Stars

***

   

    Christian films these days have a very unfortunate habit of not living up the billboard images and radio commercials. For that matter, they often don’t even live up to the subject  matter selected, which the individual plot lines often tweak in given ways that make preachy and unconvincing. Heaven Is for Real was not as bad as some I’ve seen, in either acting (such as Fireproof) or message presentation (such as God’s Not Dead). Still, it had some serious flaws based on the presumption that Christians will believe any miracle story they hear…not to mention some horrendous special effects which turned Heaven into a movie gourmet’s Purgatory!

    Greg Kinnear stars as Todd Burpo, the pastor of a small church in rural America who is experiencing personal health challenges and a financial crisis while trying to keep his small congregation together. He is comforted by his faith in God and his loving family, including his supportive wife Sonja, played by Kelly Reilly, his feisty daughter Cassie, played by Lane Styles, and his exuberant young son Colton, played by Connor Corum. But things almost take a tragic turn when Colton comes down with a life-threatening illness and has to be rushed to the hospital for extensive surgery.

    When Colton finally returns to consciousness and begins his recovery process, he tells his parents an incredible story of how he saw himself being operated on, and then ascended into Heaven and met with Jesus. At first, his parents dismiss it as just an imaginative flight-of-fancy, but Todd Burpo begins to consider that perhaps his son really did have an encounter with the divine, and continues to question him about his experiences. Soon, the news gets out about the encounter, and the Burpo Family is swarmed with press agents seeking the latest human interest story.

     Todd Burpo makes an announcement to his church members explaining the story, and saying that he believes his son’s account to be authentic. There are mixed emotions among the congregation of Todd’s church, with some people embracing the experience enthusiastically, and others viewing it as a sensationalist stunt that will attract all sorts of unwanted attentions from ghost-chasers and miracle-makers. The leader of the latter group is Nancy Rowling, a stalwart member of the church committee who lost a son in the military.

     As Colton reveals more about his supposed Heavenly visit, Todd becomes more astonished by his son’s ability to tell him things he does not believe he could not possibly know. But the pressure begins to mount for Todd as his congregation considers getting a new pastor, and even his wife begins to think he is becoming too obsessed with Colton’s NDE. Nevertheless, he forges ahead with his insistence that it is their duty to embrace it as a miraculous gift to them that they should be unafraid to share the story with the world. Hence, he decides to confront his congregation again, and make another effort to bring them around to his way of thinking.

   I’m sorry to say this, but Heaven Is for Real didn’t really feel for real. Like most small-budget Christian films, in its effort to get a message across, it let realism go to the window. I will admit that some of the acting towards the beginning was decent enough, and I did feel a heart tug when the little boy almost died and his parents were crying out to God to spare him. The whole thing was so human. But the way the father was so quick to believe that a miracle had occurred made me suspicious. This just seemed rather convenient to me. His church was in dire straits and he needed publicity badly to give it a boost. He is the one who is the main spokesman for the whole Heaven-tourism debut, with his son seemingly following along by rote.

      The special effects were terrible, with lots of cyber-glitter, laser-light angels, and a Christmas pageant-style Jesus. I never understood why so much focus was being placed on a private event among the whole congregation. It seems as if the pastor himself didn’t really believe that Heaven was for real until after the experience his son claimed to have. There was no solid case built about why this kid should be believed. As in God’s Not Dead, Atheists are purposely made to look bad, and it seem the reverend doesn’t go to the psychiatrist to weigh out the pros and cons of a scientific explanation, but rather to debunk even an attempt at such an explanation. 

    The Catholic Church is very careful about approving miracles, and always looks at natural possibilities first. But in independent congregational churches, there is no magisterium and no such procedure. If the preacher of an individual congregation want to make a claimed miracle into a big event, he can do just that. I personally find NDEs quite fascination, and some of them certainly seem to defy (or should I say transcend) the laws of nature.

   The subject of miracles, visions, and NDE’s is a complex one. As a Catholic, and an observer of life and historical accounts, I have no doubt that miracles happen. That having been said, a realistic view also indicates that at least 80% of claimed miracles are either of natural causes, thought up by frauds, or imagined by mentally unstable people. In that mix, there is also the possibility of demonic possession. I love the way the Catholic Church takes a pragmatic view of claimed miracles, and tests them vigorously before proclaiming them worthy of belief. Even then, she leaves it up to personal discretion whether or not to believe in them as authentic.

    Reading some accounts of NDEs, documented by those who experienced them and backed up by non-biased secular science journals, I have no doubt that some of these experiences truly defy (or should I say transcend) the laws of nature. However, others I would be less likely to believe, including the one used as the subject in Heaven Is for Real. Also, I disliked the way that the woman in the church who opposes making a big deal out of Colton’s NDE at church in portrayed as being warped by anger because her own son died in war. Personally, I thought her objections were perfectly reasonable, and should not have been attributed to some inner antagonism.

    That having been said, there were some interesting parts. Colton says that he recognizes his grandfather from a photo of him when he was in his 30’s, and that all the people in heaven are young. He also says that he saw his sister in heaven who “died in mommy’s tummy,” a fact which he had never been told about. He also can describe where his parents were in the hospital, and saw himself on the operating table. He is unafraid of things he feared before, such as spiders and death, and goes out of his way to comfort other dying children and promise them that everything will be alright. Whether or not the Burpo story is true, these are common signs of those who have experienced similar phenomena, and do make a fascinating study.

     There is a genuinely funny scene when different preachers come to fill in for Burpo, including a petrified preacher from the prison ministry (one of the men in the pews comments dryly, “He’s used to having a captive audience”) and an over-the-top, hand-waving seminary student (a woman comments blandly, “If Burpo doesn’t get back here soon, I’m gonna kill somebody”). Burpo recounts an interesting fairy tale about a lion and his companions who are trapped by their enemies. The trappers offer them life if they will merely hand over the lion, but they say that if they could have chosen any death, this would have been the one they would have chosen. This would have made a great motif for another film, although it didn’t really tie in well here.

   Interestingly, at the beginning of the film, a news reel is run about a girl from Lithuania had an NDE and began to paint strange and beautiful paintings describing her experiences. At the end of the film, Colton is shown as recognizing her painting of Jesus when his father pulls it up online. Naturally, the painting has been spread around all over the internet and beyond now, and although I first found it hard to relate to, I am now appreciating the depth of expression in the face and eyes. I don’t know if that’s what Jesus looked like or not, but it’s an interesting depiction nevertheless.

    Heaven Is For Real has an interesting enough topic, although perhaps the sensationalism around it is one of its greatest flaws. Todd Burpo is portrayed as hinging his faith on his son’s supposed experience. And yet are we not told “blessed are those who have not seen and yet still believed”? I’m not saying I don’t like miracle stories as much as the next person, nor that I disbelieve them just because they work outside the box of the usual. But that doesn’t mean that we are supposed to be swept up in the hype of “Heaven-tourism” which may or may not be the real deal. Our faith is supposed to be deeper than that, “a confident assurance concerning what we hope for, and conviction about things we do not see.” That is the real lesson that should be extracted from this well-meaning but perhaps misleading movie.

Todd Burpo (Greg Kinnear) shows his son Colton (Connor Corum) a photo of his grandfather