Posted: 05/26/2001

Pearl Harbor

(2001)

by Hank Yuloff

Is it sink or swim for the first blockbuster of summer? Prediction: Disney’s summer blockbuster will break all box office records!

I have been watching the trailers for Pearl Harbor for at least 6 months. I’ve experienced the build-up of excitement. And for the last couple of days, I began to hear some “serious movie critics,” as my fellow reviewer Wayne Case calls them, pan the movie.

Now that I’ve seen it, all I can say to those “serious movie critics” is “HUH?” Normally, I pan a movie by asking the producers and directors “What were you thinking?” Here, I’m asking those critics who would pan Pearl Harbor the same thing.

Pearl Harbor is a sweeping, dramatic, awe-filled movie about the United States’ darkest hours of World War II. In the tradition of movies like From Here to Eternity, it is a love story placed against the horror of war where, in the end, love and the spirit of humanity find a way to conquer.

Pearl Harbor has the feel of many of the old John Wayne films of the era, which were produced to keep up the spirits of the folks back home. That is to say, there are some corny moments which drew giggles from the teenagers behind me, but when they grow up, they will see the glory that can come when you put country and honor ahead of self.

Director Michael Bay has crafted a classic movie using superb acting, a strong story and some amazing special effects. I am reminded a little of Titanic where Bay has taken a true story and used characters not present at the events to tell the composite story of the many who were there. It puts a very human side to a horrific attack. Director Bay answers those who would degrade the movie for this by saying “This is not a history lesson. The most important thing is, did we get the essence of what happened correct.” Yes, he did.

The story of the attack on Pearl Harbor has always been, for me, a very difficult one to watch. We knew it was going to happen, but didn’t listen to ourselves. At any number of places our political leaders could have paid heed to military intelligence, but it wasn’t politically expedient. Then there is also the theory that President Roosevelt knew it was going to happen and let it so we would be drawn into the war. I’ve never really followed that one, but I also have stopped believing in the lone gunman theory in Dallas. Regardless of knowing the outcome, I was completely inside this movie. Knowing the attack was coming made the first hour almost excruciating because there was nothing I could do to prevent those zeros, dive bombers and torpedo carriers from coming up over the mountains and attacking the battleship Arizona.

On that subject, I also was ready to make some comparisons to Saving Private Ryan, vis-a-vis the attack scene. A couple of major differences jump out at me: In Saving Private Ryan we were told that the storming of Normandy was going to be horrific. We know the main attack is right at the beginning and, like that first hill on a roller coaster, we are brought immediately into the action and are kept on the edge of our seats. With Pearl Harbor there is an hour of story and plot development where we become intimate with the lead characters.

And those characters are wonderful. The story revolves around a good, old-fashioned love triangle. Playing two parts of the Burt Lancaster-Montgomery Clift-Deborah Kerr legs of the triangle are Ben Affleck (Bounce) and Josh Hartnett (Town & Country), as two closer-than-a-brother friends who have grown up together and enter the army as pilots in pre-war America. They end up falling for the same woman, in this case Kate Beckinsdale (Brokedown Palace). Their story is the foundation upon which the rest of the movie is built.

The chief supporting roles are played by Alec Baldwin as Colonel Jimmy Doolittle, Cuba Gooding Jr. as Dorie Miller, and Jon Voight, who is strikingly wonderful as President Roosevelt. All are excellent, as is the entire cast. Especially noteworthy are the the actresses who play nurses in Ms. Beckinsdale’s staff. One of the most endearing elements of the movie is watching these women as they perform their jobs under the immense pressure and chaos of the actual attack. The shock is, for some of them, unbearable, but eventually their training kicks in and, in some cases, it’s just all too horrific.

Pearl Harbor’s running time is a very solid, but entertaining, three hours. And, in the same way that the motion picture Titanic takes runs the same time period as the ship sinking, the attack sequence of Pearl Harbor takes place during the same 40 minute period of the actual attack. As noted before, it is an extremely entertaining three hours and you will be moved. In this regard, Pearl Harbor just illustrates one of the most basic reasons we go to the movies.

Now, I have just a couple of cynical remarks: I’m not going to get too critical and ask what it must have cost to move a battle-ready, active duty aircraft carrier to Pearl Harbor for the premier of the movie. And I will not ask what’s up with the obvious error during the end credits where the pilot of the biplane is wearing a helmet in the long shots but not on the close ups. Or, why did Affleck have to take a train to Britain when he was leaving from New York? And, where were all the Hawaiians in Hawaii? And (this one is from my wife) if you were to die, wouldn’t you want your best friend to be the one that ended up with her? Sorry. I just had to mention this stuff.

All of that aside, I cannot help but recommend this film. It is pure entertainment.

Hank Yuloff is an entertainment industry entrepreneur living in Hollywood.

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