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THE LAST SAMURAI Send This Review to a Friend
Quentin Tarantino has his "Kill Bill." You might call this one "Kill Tom." It's a stretch to begin with to imagine Tom Cruise as a samurai fighter in 19th century Japan, and nothing much happens in the handsomely filmed but far-fetched tale of bloody combat and honor, "The Last Samurai," to make one see Cruise in the same league as the late renowned king of samurai films, Toshiro Mifuni.
We meet Cruise as Nathan Algren, a disillusioned ex-U.S.Army officer, survivor of campaigns against the Indians in America, and he is wracked with guilt about the extent of the slaughter of innocents. He's had it. He's a boozer, and he is reduced to showing his rifle skills in entertainment sideshows. Along comes an offer for him to go to Japan and train soldiers to put down a samurai revolt and pave the way for U.S. business interests. The money is good, so off he goes. But he finds those who want to use him arrogant, in a hurry and wanting to rush soldiers into combat before they are sufficiently prepared.
The twist is that eventually Algren lines up with the samurai he has been hired to fight. The scenes are extremely violent. Men with swords battle against troops with the latest guns and canons. Director Edward Zwick, who co-wrote the screenplay with John Logan and Marshall Herskovitz, does a yeoman job of directing the battle sequences, and the visuals are quite spectacular.
But the screenplay merely transplants the conventions of westerns and civil war films to Japan. The cliches are still there, only in a different milieu. Ken Watanabe plays Katsumoto, a samurai hero whom Algren admires, and after Algren's capture, the two form an alliance and are ready to die rather than give in to the emperor's forces and the businessmen set to exploit Japan.
As you might expect, there is a woman. She is soft-spoken Taka, Katsumoto's sister, widowed when Algren slays her husband in battle. Instead of hating Algren, she nurses his wounds and casts longing glances at him. Corny? You bet. But Taka offers the possibility of a new, quiet life for Algren without all the slashing and spurting blood--if he can live long enough. For all its pretentiousness "The Last Samurai" is mainly for ask-no-questions action addicts. A Warner Brothers release.
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