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Tigerland [DVD] [2001] starring: Colin Farrell, Matthew Davis, Clifton Collins Jr., Tom Guiry, Shea Whigham

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Rating: - I never saw Bozz again. Some guys said he died in Nam, but he was never listed.

I never saw Bozz again. Some guys said he died in Nam, but he was never listed.

As a consumer of war films I am ashamed to say that I had never heard of this film. I had no hopes for it as the idea of soldiers going through their basic training has been used to death from Carry on Sergeant to Full Metal Jacket.

This was a tough gritty take on the idea. The language was extremely inventive even more so than the drill sergeant's rants in Full Metal jacket. It revolves around one recruit who doesn't want to be there,

Early on he jokingly says to his new friend "lets not be friends as you could be die tomorrow and Iwould miss you too much." in a way it sums up his character as although he is trying to get out of the army he is happy to help otherpeople and the ending is very touching as he says not to keep in touch they are just army buddies and he is never really heard of again.

All the soldiers training comes up with the idea of some of the recruits being brighter and more thinking than their instructors and this is played out here.

Colin Farrell makes this film as he is so good and the dialogue is crackling along.

He starts out the rebel and eventually he becomes a leader of men. Is it a cliche that the rebels really want to lead?

The training looks and sounds fairly realistic and we have out usual tensions and some of this fellow recruits don't take to his rebellious ways. Also he is good at soldiering but is not trying and they are trying and not good at soldiering. It tends to show them up and they don't like it.

The Vietnam vets are training them and trying to teach them how to stay alive whilst Charlie is trying to kill them.

The idea is the film is narrated by his mate who is going to write a book about Bozz. Bozz gets him out of the service with honour and the final scene is him saying good bye and Bozz goes to the war.

It is a moving film and my criteria for a good film is whether I want to watch it again immediately and with this one I did.

An underrated film but I liked it and recommend it.

I also liked the idea of in the credits showing each actor with his or her name beside them. A good idea.

Rating: - Not bad, not great, but it may be worth taking a look at

This film never really grabbed me, it's a good little film, but for me that's all.

Good performances by the cast, in particular Colin Farrell in what was only his second film.

There are some funny moments in the film, plus a few tense moments, but there was simply not enough going on for me.

This is purely a film about soldiers in training for Vietnam, there is no "action" in this film, I have to say that I did not realise this until I'd watched the whole film, it deals with the training and personal issues within the group of trainees and their superior officers before going on the Vietnam itself and that's all.

Rating: - Brilliant!

This is a great film, one of the best I've seen Colin Farrell in. It has a great storyline, good acting and brilliantly filmed. Not so much a war film as Saving Private Ryan but still very entertaining with a great twist at the end and with Farrell playing out the rebelious soldier with great enthusiasm. Well worth 5 stars in my opinion.

Rating: - Very good film

I originally sought this film out based purely on it's trailer. I'd heard nothing about it and had heard of none of it's stars (including Colin Farrel, at the time). The result is a film bereft of window dressing and seemingly free of ego (bizarrely, given the director's track record). What it does give is a great Vietnam war film with neither Vietnam or the war to lift it. The relationships between the various soldiers are the bedrock of the film and, despite some cartoony steretypes, they are all excellent as they progress through training with little or nothing to cling to and the spectre of Vietnam and death (the two are used almost interchangably) just on the horizon. Colin Farrell pulls off the charismatic rebel with ease and his rise to leadership is both believable and well realised. The other "Grunts" are all good, though obviously less focused on than Farrell and his volunteer sidekick, Paxton, whose narration book-ends the film and, portrayed as slightly more intelligent than the others, adds alot of weight to the stuff in between.
Next to a film like Platoon, Tigerland seems pedestrian, with talky scenes and twenty-odd different ways of showing the way a rebel can be respected. However, it's a very engrossing film, giving a real sense of immediacy to what these men are going through. The only slightly underdeveloped theme is the vague way the Farrell helps two fellow Grunts to escape the army. The theme is picked up and dropped just as it seems to be becoming the point of the film. This doesn't do alot to diminish the film however as it plays relatively well next Farrell's steadily increasing sympathetic edge.
The camera work is excellent with grainy cinematography somewhat reminiscent of the Dogme style. I'm convinced that it wouldn't work nearly as well if it had been shot more conventionally.
The pay-off is superb, mostly because the film has not really looked like it's going to have a pay-off and when it comes it's both surprising and powerful.
Tigerland is a clever, powerful film, anchored by Colin Farrell who has, in my opinion, never been better. It benefits from not taking a stance either for or against war and emerges both entertaining and profound.

Z

Rating: - Tiger, tiger, burning bright...

Tigerland is a Vietnam war film with a difference. It doesn't have a particular political message regarding Vietnam; it is more of a critique on the culture of warfare in general, where it is difficult to tell the sane from the insane, the true believers from the patriots, and those who simply want to remain alive.

At various points in the film, the commanders in charge of training announce to the platoon that has just made another snafu that they are all dead. 'I'm still alive,' the upstart Bozz (played by Colin Farrell in one of his earliest roles) will almost always announce. At one time, a sergeant tells Bozz that men can't just quit the Army. 'I'm not quitting, I'm just not playing any more,' Bozz calmly announces.

The plot revolves around a platoon at training during the early 1970s, when the horrors of the Vietnam war had been played out on television for the greater part of a decade, and no one really wanted to go as a lowly grunt private. The ultimate in training was Tigerland, a Louisiana swamp area converted into Vietnam-like terrain, for realistic training. Recruit Bozz is almost like a zen master, taking nothing in the training very seriously other than the potential deadening effects it might have on his (and the others' souls). Bozz is a troublemaker to the lock-step training mentality; like many troublemakers, he is in fact a diamond-in-the-rough for leadership, as men naturally follow his lead, and he eventually gets rewarded (or so one might think) with responsibility. However, his primary, self-chosen responsibility seems to be to save people from the Army if they don't warrant being there -- to this end, he helps arrange in ambiguous fashion various types of hardship and disability discharges for others in the platoon, but fails to escape the fate of going to Vietnam himself.

Colin Farrell is the only big 'name' in the film, and when it was filmed, he wasn't yet as well known as he is in the post Recruit/SWAT days. Director Joel Schumacher, known for big-budget blockbusters such as Batman & Robin, filmed this in grainy, shorter film, with no steady cams and harsh cinematography, reflecting the harshness of the training and the unsteady nature of the reality of war. For a Vietnam war film, this film is unique in that it never actually goes to Vietnam; everything is a home-grown re-creation -- perhaps this is another statement on the reality of war?

The roles of Paxton (Matthew Davis) and others recruits in the platoon are played with honesty and integrity; the officers and trainers are bit less realistic at times it seems, but then such officials must needs put on a persona when in such roles, so perhaps this is reflected in the actors' performances as actors in a very different engagement.

The DVD has a few extras, including Colin Farrell's screen test. A fascinating film, enigmatic in its ending and the overall meaning, save to say that perhaps all of war, and most of life generally, is absurd.

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