# Tigerland (2000)

### reviewed by
Harvey S. Karten

    TIGERLAND

Reviewed by Harvey Karten 20th Century Fox/Regency Enterprise Director: Joel Schumacher Writer: Ross Klavan, Michael McGruther Cast: Colin Farrell, Matthew Davis, Clifton Collins Jr., Thomas Guiry, Shea Whigham, Russell Richardson, Cole Hauser

Someday we'll get a movie written by a North Vietnamese or Viet Cong fighter giving a truthful account of the training program set up by the people of that beleaguered Southeast Asian nation who fought for their independence against the Chinese, the French and the Americans. We already know that there are some cultural differences that separate the northerners from their compatriots in the south, but for the most part they are of the same cultural background. Not so the American fighting units. Not only did the U.S. servicemen generally have no passionate reason to fight 12,000 miles away since, after all, they were not defending their country; nor did they feel they had the support of a sizable majority of the countrymen back home; but in addition, since the U.S. embraces a large landscape with different sectional, cultural, ethnic and religious differences, there was bound to be considerable friction within their own squadron. That chafing is the subject of Joel Schumacher's movie.

"Tigerland," is semiautobiographical, dealing with director Joel Schumacher's own period of training in a Louisiana camp known as Tigerland--a camp which simulated actual fighting conditions in the jungles of the 'Nam and which was preceded by a rigorous training program in yet another Louisiana location. Filmed largely with hand held cameras and natural lighting in accordance with the Danish-style Dogme 95 movement, "Tigerland" often looks like some documentary coverage of a typical barracks. We get the impression that the Louisiana program was the American approach writ small. A washed-out olive green aura encompasses many sections of this fictionalized bit of history giving the feeling of immediacy. We witness what was going down in 1971, to some extent a microcosm of American society today.

Schumacher lucks out with a largely unknown cast of awesome performers, particularly the lead character, Roland Bozz, played by the Irish actor Colin Farrell--a handsome, charismatic man who can probably look forward to some big Hollywood contracts. Emulating the ambiance of such films as Oliver Stone's "Platoon" and Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket," "Tigerland" takes us into the bivouac and the mindset of a group of grunts, most of whom were drafted and who had educations well short of college. At no point in the story does anyone discuss his opinions of the war--which was the case with most soldiers throughout the nation who were concerned more about survival than political theory as they prepared to be shipped out to the hellhole of the the Far East.

The story is narrated by Private Jim Paxton (Matthew Davis), a man who enlisted with the quixotic notion that he would be the Ernest Hemingway of the 1970's, sitting with notebook in hand recording the blow-by-blow action of the fighting to capture the zeitgeist of the grunts with whom he would share a unique camaraderie. By contrast, Wilson (Shea Whigham) is the sort of person you'd think the army would want, a guy with a natural killer instinct who couldn't give a fig about the reasons for the war but who simply wanted to bag himself some trophies of "gooks" and "dinks"--as the Asians were commonly referred to by the fighting units.

Colin Farrell runs away with the show. As Roland Bozz, he has some college, has been in trouble with the law, and defies army rules and regulations. In one case he runs across a fellow in his platoon who is married with a kid. "What are you doing here?" he wonders aloud. Informing the grunt with barely a six-grade education of his rights, Bozz succeeds in getting the man a discharge.

The blaring orders of the sergeants who are running the show and who at times see nothing wrong with pushing their men down in the dirt, stepping on their heads when they get out of line, produce in Bozz a barely suppressed hostility. He expresses his defiance with a smirk, as though to say "this is all a game, fellas...have a few laughs while you're doing push-ups and being awakened at 4:30 each morning by morons who get their jollies from kicking around their own people."

Shot by Matthew Libatique, whose resume includes such surreal films as Darren Aronofsky's current "Requiem for a Dream" and the even more experimental "Pi," "Tigerland" affords by contrast a realistic look at an actual training program. If the Vietnamese enemy ever got a look at what went on inthis training camp, it would be emboldened at least a much as it was upon hearing of the massive protests in the U.S. against the war. Blacks are fighting whites, sergeants battling G.I.'s, psycho killers going after wise guys with an education...all serve to give "Tigerland" the sort of dramatic force enjoyed by the audience for Robert Altman's 1983 adaptation of David Rabe's play, "Streamers"--a couple of days in an army barracks at the dawn of America's involvement in Vietnam which turned into a parable about manhood and death.

Rated R. Running time: 109 minutes. (C) 2000 by Harvey Karten, film_critic@compuserve.com

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