# Soldier (1998)

### reviewed by
Scott Renshaw

    SOLDIER
    (Warner Bros.)
    Starring:  Kurt Russell, Jason Scott Lee, Connie Nielsen, Jason Isaacs,
    Gary Busey, Sean Pertwee.
    Screenplay:  David Webb Peoples.
    Producer:  Jerry Weintraub.
    Director:  Paul Anderson.
    MPAA Rating:  R (violence, profanity, adult themes)
    Running Time:  96 minutes.
    Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.

David Webb Peoples has contributed to some of the most compelling screenplays of recent years. He fashioned haunting visions of the future in the seminal science fiction film BLADE RUNNER and the psychologically gripping 12 MONKEYS; he has deconstructed the mythology of heroic violence in UNFORGIVEN. Peoples has shown a facility for turning genre films into films of ideas. The specific ideas with which he has concerned himself held out the hope that SOLDIER might be something more than this week's disposable bit of whoop-it-up mayhem.

Instead, SOLDIER shows what happens when the writer of BLADE RUNNER and UNFORGIVEN meets the director of MORTAL KOMBAT and EVENT HORIZON: the director wins, and we lose. Peoples's script sends us to a near-future where government soldiers are trained from birth for no other purpose but battle. One of these soldiers is Todd 3465 (Kurt Russell), a scarred veteran of multiple wars who has served as the perfect warrior -- no family, no emotional connections of any kind, no reluctance to obey any order, no mercy. Unfortunately, he is rendered obsolete when an even more perfect, genetically-enhanced breed of soldier becomes the new standard. Left for dead after a display of prowess by new soldier Caine 607 (Jason Scott Lee), Todd is tossed on the scrap-heap of waste disposal planet Arcadia 234, where he tries to fit into a society of marooned humans understandably wary of this new arrival.

I suspect that Peoples's original script focused on how the functionally anti-social Todd begins to explore human interaction for the first time. He recuperates in the home of a kindly man named Mace (Sean Pertwee), begins feeling desire for Mace's wife Sandra (Connie Nielsen), and bonds with their son Nathan the only way he knows how. The prologue depicting Todd's relentless training is an effective set-up for a story about the psychology of warfare, the challenges of re-adjusting to civilian life, and whether or not it's actually better to create a cold killing machine to survive the horrors of war.

That's not the story director Paul Anderson insists on telling. Though in his production notes Anderson describes the story as "SHANE in outer space," he actually makes it much more like RAMBO in outer space. When the new-breed soldiers arrive on Arcadia for a training exercise led by the heartless Col. Mekum (Jason Isaacs, wearing a thin moustache so we _know_ he's dastardly), Todd straps on the artillery, slaps on the camouflage paint and sets out to tear the new soldiers some new orifices. The final half-hour generally finds Todd picking off his faceless adversaries like red-shirts in a "Star Trek" episode, occasionally interrupted by immense explosions and flying bodies. All this naturally leads to a climactic mano-a-mano between Todd and Caine in which the hulking one-eyed terminator becomes evil personified. Never mind that Caine is a programmed soldier just like Todd himself, and that it would be much more interesting to sympathize with him than to cheer his inevitable defeat mindlessly.

There's nothing inherently wrong with black hat/white hat action adventures where we watch a bit of carnage and root for good to triumph over evil. The problem is that Anderson pretends SOLDIER is more than that, offering scenes of Todd perplexed by a tear rolling down his face, or recoiling at displays of kindness. Moments that might have been genuinely affecting instead inspire derisive laughter, because Anderson is far more interested in visceral response than in emotional response. Ironically, he spends most of the film reveling in dehumanizing violence instead of showing how dehumanizing violence created his protagonist. I can't believe that's the story David Webb Peoples wanted to tell, which is what makes SOLDIER more disappointing than it might otherwise be. He turned over a smart idea to a director determined to make a dumb movie.

         On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 soldier's stories:  4.

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