# General's Daughter, The (1999)

### reviewed by
Jamey Hughton

    THE GENERAL'S DAUGHTER
    ** (out of five stars)
    A review by Jamey Hughton

Starring-John Travolta, Madeleine Stowe, James Cromwell, Timothy Hutton,

    James Woods, Clarence Williams III and Leslie Stefanson
    Director-Simon West
    Rated 18A

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I don't appreciate it when a thriller manipulates the viewer into thinking the plot is interesting, when in fact it's ludicrous. In the case of The General's Daughter, the plot is more than capable of intriguing you to a certain point. But at this juncture in the story, the movie begins to fall apart like a crumbling cookie. This predictable summer thriller is only sporadically involving, and that is unfortunately not enough to compensate for all of it's detailed flaws.

Get past one moment early on where John Travolta exercises his southern accent, and you're likely to survive this entire movie. Travolta plays Criminal Investigations Divisions officer Paul Brenner, who's working undercover at a military base when another situation arises: the apparent rape and murder of a young female officer (Leslie Stefanson). It turns out that the victim is the daughter of General Joe Campbell (James Cromwell). Let the investigation begin.

With the assistance of fellow CID investigator Sarah Sunhill (played rather on-the-sidelines by Madeleine Stowe), Brenner uncovers what appears to be an intricate and bizarre homicide case. Things begin to get marginally engrossing when we meet Colonel Moore (James Woods), a former commanding officer of the deceased who has a few secrets up his sleeve. Woods submits another scene-stealing performance here as he oozes authority, surrounded by clouds of smoke emitted from his cigar. With echoes of his supporting role in True Crime, in which he duked it out with Clint Eastwood in enjoyably profane verbal exchanges, he makes every moment believable. Here though, the intense dialogue comes care of confrontations with Travolta, as the two send mindful, knowing glares across the room. There are many scenes such as this in The General's Daughter, in which the veteran cast performs splendidly under pressure, but the circumstances that tie these meetings together are difficult to absorb.

Director Simon West (Con Air), shows a watchful eye of delivering a stylish looking thriller, but he fails miserably when it comes to the intellectual part of it. The General's Daughter is, more often than not, a predictable and unexciting mess. It does not help matters that the plot is virtually actionless, dragging it's heels all the way at a mind-numbing snails pace. A few brief action scenes, marvelously handled in the editing department, show that the movie could have delivered such a more proficient package. From a director who does such a great job of staging explosions and miraculous stunts, I suggest West should stick with mindless, rip-roaring action features and attempt to avoid future projects like this.

Still, the movie is certainly not without it's merits. The acting is very good from the majority of the experienced cast. The performances range from commanding (Travolta) to electric (Woods) to stiff-as-a-board (Cromwell, who doesn't show off his real talents here). Madeleine Stowe manages to hold her own for a while, but as the female lead in an action-thriller, she doesn't pull through sufficiently.

One of the problems with the execution is that it's very predictable. >From minute one, I had few doubts about the identity of the killer in question. The script even unwillingly points him out for us, using familiar techniques to hide his guilt until the unmasking toward the end. In all fairness, we've seen many of the devices used in The General's Daughter put to greater effect in other films.

The secrets behind the girl's mysterious death are explained gradually, but by the resolution we have tunneled through so much malarkey that it feels unnecessary and surprisingly silly. The General's Daughter is not a terrible movie, and it is involving enough to sustain a viewer's attention span for a certain period of time. But it just could have been so much better.

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