Reviews

A bit of research provides this humbling realization--the most improbable parts of this film are the ones based upon reality. The wrongly-accused Marlow brothers DID resist a lynch mob and an ambush assisted by their guards, and in the end, the survivors found legal vindication.

A sheriff and his deputy wait at the station for the expected arrival of a brother with a bad reputation. Instead, an obvious hired gun arrives, about whom they worry, about whom they do... nothing. John Wayne, eldest and most formidable of the Elder brothers, comes in the back way and even attends his late mother's funeral at a safe distance. One of the most interesting aspects to this film is Wayne's character's repeated refusals to fall into ambush, to do the stupid thing.

Their parents are dead, the family impoverished, the scent of fish slowly rises as Wayne, particularly, but also Martin and a VERY strong cast of supporting actors gradually unspool the plot. A hired gun... an ambitious gunsmith and his son, even in his early days, Dennis Hopper did edgy and creepy with a master's abilities. Who ARE the good guys? The Director is honest enough to let the viewer go with his impulses to trust the Brothers--rightly, as it turns out.

George Kennedy makes a creepy, convincing heavy, one with a psychopath's utter lack of concern for legality and a sadist's delight in inflicting pain. There are few scenes to rival his gleeful torturing of an inoffensive undertaker interrupted when he looks up to receive Wayne's pick handle in his face. Seldom is a steaming dish of come-uppance so satisfactorily served.

The growing and utter hopelessness of the brothers' cause manifests itself with conviction. The villainy of the scheming antagonist grows more and more manifest until he murders his own son without any particular sign of remorse. There is an intensity here that rewards the careful watcher, there is a breadth to this film worth a bit of slow pacing in the second half.

On the whole, a convincingly superior effort.

It's a lot of fun to watch a movie that just entertains, with plenty of swashbuckling, a stunningly beautiful heroine, manly male leads, and a fairly ghastly, but amusing story. One can't help being struck by the simple beauty of the leads--Brady & Chandler had 'A' movie looks, and there is really nothing to fault on their performances. The doomed and stunning Suzan Ball parades the deck in a series of stunning dresses, and shows the looks and talents behind the little legend.

It is fun to think of David Porter and David Glasgow Farragut fighting the last gasp of piracy in the Caribbean. Joseph Calleia makes a magnificent and cheerfully evil Spanish governor, the kind of villain who puts you on the rack and offers you sherry. George Mathews makes a wise-cracking and dipsomaniacal CPO who would have been broken below Seaman 2nd in any serious navy, but still has fun and lets us have it, too.

The story is utterly nonsensical, historically ridiculous, and the props and costumes have nothing do to with the supposed time period, with the exception of the U.S. navy uniforms shown early and never afterwards. It is only two to three times more plausible and accurate than the recent Disney abominations.

I note a distinct lack of specific criticisms in the negative reviews, almost as if those hostile hadn't noted a single scene... Curious, that...

The honest humor and sincere patriotism in this film was very refreshing, and one fact--that again, curiously, the hostile reviewers seem to miss--is that it suggests an accurate awareness of our nation's history could lead to the rehabilitation of even... Michael Moore! Ah, well, 'Lord of the Rings' was optimistic fantasy, too... Moore and his disciples will neither understand nor appreciate the compliment Zucker paid them... After all, they're into 'documentaries!'

Kelsey Grammar hasn't impressed me this much since 'Down Periscope.' He actually does humor, exaggeration, sincere and powerful earnestness, and even a turn of action film in the same movie, and he did... not... take... himself seriously for a moment. It was a true, rollicking tour de force by an actor who has earned my respect.

I should mention the cameos... For once, I could stand Bill Riley, and perhaps the only redeeming thing I can say about Paris Hilton after seeing this film is that she can laugh at... herself! Kevin Sorbo was very funny at a vital time. Jon Voight... You forget what the great old actors can do. His scene, which I shall leave vague, brought my laughter up short... and my eyes swimming with tears and reverence for the words he spoke.

Lots of the trademark 'Airplane' humor, and there was a lack of viciousness in the film, which amazes me given a political environment when people daily tear into the President, calling him things that, if they were true, would make them suicidal for having mentioned them! Zucker laughs and points fingers, but there is a sense in this film that the objects might yet see his points, and laugh with him, and us, and remember to rejoice in the nation... It is an optimistic film, to re-iterate.

The scene that got to me the most took place at the final denouement of the concert section... Note the soldiers in the audience carefully. It was nice to laugh so heartily during this dreary election year, for which, I thank all involved with this film.

If it were a matter of just the acting alone, what else could Mills and Guinness receive but a 10? Both of them turn in performances not a whit less than stunning.

It's funny, but one of the first, disturbing things that struck me about the film was the error in having postwar British Army troops in Battle Dress, cheap for costuming, but discarded long before the end of the war itself, and completely vanished in peacetime. Perhaps that's emblematic at how the movie gropes earnestly for the military soul, but misses its mark in the final, most important clinch.

Soldiers are NOT as fragile as both Mills and Guinness's character are shown to be, hence my note about 'recriminations.' I could believe that Mills's colonel had been damaged by torture and strain during the war, and that, in the end, broke him. He made some positively dreadful mistakes in the command of his regiment, mistakes that made this lifetime student of the art and science of command positively CRINGE. The man had no business being in command of a battalion, only family sentiment could have allowed him to be given a post in which he failed himself and his command so miserably.

He is shown to have collapsed, failed, and ultimately 'laid violent hands upon himself' because of the ruthless character of Guinness's character, his antagonist. All right, the cruder, rougher, 'midlands' Scot is ruthless, crude, and elemental. The obvious solution to the problem he posed was transfer, or, wiser, for Mills's character to command the battalion THROUGH him, harnessing the wind to draw the ship. All right, the damaged Mill fails to control the elements.

It does not, however, make sense that the wind itself would disintegrate after Mills's character takes what any active soldier--a man who'd seen combat, and triumphed--would have considered the coward's way out. If 'Jock' was so callous as to drive Burroughs to suicide, Jock would not have disintegrated in the aftermath, as Guinness is shown in an overlong scene doing. It did not convince. I would have ended the film when Guinness's character makes calm arrangements for the disposal of Mills's body.

I think the date of the film is the answer. In 1960, despite the best efforts of what remained of the British Armed forces, the Empire was in the later stages of headlong disintegration. Obviously, someone had to blame, and since the thin red line had broken, it had to be the fault of frail, neurotic men--such as Guiness and Mills portray.

I would say the reason for the loss of the Empire can be found in other regions. The movie IS an excellent study in command, I would recommend that officers in training view both 'Tunes of Glory' and 'The Caine Mutiny.' But both are fiction.

One note--the side-story romance of 'Jock's' daughter with an enlisted piper must needs be remembered to explain why Jock committed a very-nearly unforgivable breach of military etiquette. A Sandhurst graduate would never have thought of striking an enlisted man. A 'mustang' such as Jock had BEEN an enlisted man, and the barriers would not have been in place as strongly. Jock paid his daughter's suitor the complement of decking him.

Still, it bears repetition: Men who have bathed in blood do not disintegrate at the sight of a corpse in a washroom.