The Last Samurai
reviewed by Brian "the Naked Gun" Felts & Benn "Where's the Humanity" Farrell
Tom Cruise stars as a civil war veteran, Nathan Algren, hired to train the Japanese army to fight the last of
the country's Samurai culture. However, his passion is soon swayed when he is taken captive
and learns the ways of the samurais.
Many people compare "The Last Samurai" to Kevin Costner's "Dances With Wolves," and I agree.
Know what though? "Dances With Wolves"was a kick ass flick, and so was this one.
Edward Zwick returns to the director's chair after 1999's "The Seige," but resembles his work
on the epic frontier movie "Legends of the Fall." However, "The Last Samurai is made beautiful
by multi Academy Award winning cinematographer John Toll (Braveheart, Legends of the Fall).
John Logan's script overflows with social themes about remembering where you come from, having
loyalty to people who are loyal to you and a plethora of others. The dialogue is a little
modern at times, but I'm willing to forgive it.
Cruise does fine in his role, but gives nothing he hasn't already challenged himself with
in the past. The greatest performance of the picture comes from Ken Watanabe as Katsumto, the leader
of the Samurai, whose control is exemplary. Watanabe has my solid vote for Best Supporting Actor
in ANY awards presentation this year. He is by all definitions "stellar."
Like I said, even though it has no Hollywood ending per say, the film smells Hollywood. I think
those moments are easily spotted. My only other criticism is Cruise's descent into the Samurai
lifestyle is too quick, but for a 144 minute movie, I appreciated saving the time getting
through the second act.
See this picture. It's fun and exciting and has SO much heart. I'm proud to say I got to see it in
the cinemas. Benn - Where's the Humanity?
I can say that I enjoyed this movie for two reasons. One, The excellent acting by Ken
Watanabe, and, two, the spiritual ness that he brings to the movie with his portrayal
of a Samurai who is seeing his time pass him by. Watanabe makes a typical carbon copy
Hollywood movie quite entertaining. This movie should be seen by one and all.
The story is about how a supposed American Military hero, Nathan Algren, played by that
American stud Tom Cruise, is asked by Colonel Bagley his former commander, played by
Tony Goldwyn, (girls will remember him because he was the bad guy in the 1990 Patrick
Swayze movie Ghost), and the Japanese Ambassador to the US, to train a new army for
the emperor of Japan to defeat the evil Samurai that are fighting the changes being
brought to Japan by the Ambassador. Since this is a typical Hollywood movie, our
hero, Algren (Cruise), is a drunkard who is haunted by his military past of slaughtering
millions of innocent Indians in the late 1870's. He was commanded by General Custer of
the 7th Cavalry, which for those people who slept through history class, fought the Battle
of the Little Big Horn, where he took 700 lightly armed Calvary officers and fought 2000
Indians, and lost, badly. But since most of Custer's men were slaughtered, Algren must
have been out sick that day of the battle. So Algren is haunted by visions of his next
duty, which is the slaughter of Indian women and children, probably some kind of reference
to the Battle of Wounded Knee where American Cavalry did slaughter a bunch of Indian women
and children to revenge the death of Custer. His commander of course was Col. Bagley
(Goldwyn) who he now hates. Anyway, Algren agrees to go to Japan and train the new army
how to fight with its new weapons being provided by, you guessed it, America. So Algren
takes his badly trained men into battle and loses, badly, to the Samurai, and is captured
by the Samurai leader Katsumoto. From this point on, the movie takes a left turn and
becomes a good movie.
Ken Watanabe, who does a brilliant job playing the part of an old warrior trying to keep
his county from losing its identity, plays Katsumoto. I was really taken aback by the
overall tranquility and for lack of a better term, spiritual nature of the Samurai that
he portrays. Watanabe actually practices many aspects of the Samurai in real life according
to IMDB.com. He just does an outstanding job in the movie and deserved the Oscar nomination
he got for Best Supporting Actor, which I hope he wins.
The rest of the movie is the same stuff. Algren tries to come to grips with his past and
redeem himself by fighting along side the noble savages of Japan, blah, blah, blah. The
director of the movie was Edward Zwick who has direct one of my favorite movies, Glory,
and also other movies, The Siege, and Courage Under Fire, does a good job with an easy
Hollywood script. John Logan who has helped write great movies, Gladiator, and horrible
movies, Time Machine and Bats, wrote the screenplay and it is a reflection of his other
plays combined, some parts very good, some parts very bad. The other actors in the movie
do an admirable job but clearly the Japanese actors out act the American ones in this
movie.
Go see the movie, its worth seeing. However without Watanabe, this movie would be pretty
average. Brian-The Naked Gun
I'll start off bold and beautiful. This is possibly one of the best pictures I think
Hollywood is able to produce this year. However, it IS a Hollywood picture, so...