Taps (1981)
Country: US
Technical: col 126m
Director: Harold Becker
Cast: Timothy Hutton, George C. Scott, Ronny Cox, Sean Penn, Tom Cruise
Synopsis:
Cadets at a military school rebel against a perceived lack of honour in those appointed to instruct them.
Review:
The challenge of this film is that just as the cadets are unable to judge how far to take their code of honour, so the viewer is unsure whether to look forward to a lesson in the overriding value of human life above all other ideals, or to a defiant and self-justifying bloodbath. The film's eventual satisfaction - or attempted satisfaction - of both expectations, while lacking the courage to end on a question mark as Lindsay Anderson's If did, is really the final nail in its coffin (we didn't care much either way all along).
Country: US
Technical: col 126m
Director: Harold Becker
Cast: Timothy Hutton, George C. Scott, Ronny Cox, Sean Penn, Tom Cruise
Synopsis:
Cadets at a military school rebel against a perceived lack of honour in those appointed to instruct them.
Review:
The challenge of this film is that just as the cadets are unable to judge how far to take their code of honour, so the viewer is unsure whether to look forward to a lesson in the overriding value of human life above all other ideals, or to a defiant and self-justifying bloodbath. The film's eventual satisfaction - or attempted satisfaction - of both expectations, while lacking the courage to end on a question mark as Lindsay Anderson's If did, is really the final nail in its coffin (we didn't care much either way all along).
Country: US
Technical: col 126m
Director: Harold Becker
Cast: Timothy Hutton, George C. Scott, Ronny Cox, Sean Penn, Tom Cruise
Synopsis:
Cadets at a military school rebel against a perceived lack of honour in those appointed to instruct them.
Review:
The challenge of this film is that just as the cadets are unable to judge how far to take their code of honour, so the viewer is unsure whether to look forward to a lesson in the overriding value of human life above all other ideals, or to a defiant and self-justifying bloodbath. The film's eventual satisfaction - or attempted satisfaction - of both expectations, while lacking the courage to end on a question mark as Lindsay Anderson's If did, is really the final nail in its coffin (we didn't care much either way all along).