Memorial Day Movies 🇺🇸

10 cinematic tributes about the American soldier

“Patriotism isn't about making everyone stand and salute the flag. Patriotism is about making this a country where everyone wants to.” — Jason Kander

Going to back to old Ebert clips on YouTube is like catnip to me, and I can consume him sparring with Gene Siskel like most people watch sports highlights. But there’s a snippet from an appearance he did on the Charlie Rose (derogatory) show back in 2000 that’s also stuck with me — and usually pops into my head around any major day celebrating America.

He was recapping a controversy around Spike Lee (plus ça change…) and comments around the recently released Revolutionary War film The Patriot, starring Mel Gibson (also derogatory). The famed Black director took issue with a slave character in the film whose limited screen time only functioned to serve Gibson’s colonial captain. “Why doesn’t he want to build his own house? Why doesn’t Mel Gibson help him?” Ebert pointedly asked. “Spike was right about that […] that movie really left out the foundation of the emerging American nation, which was slavery.”

It’s easy to fall back on lazy lionization of legends on a day that celebrates national heritage. That’s not to say we should not remember those who selflessly gave of their own lives to protect their country in the line of military service.

But what would it look like if we said a phrase like “thank you for your service” and knew what it truly meant? If we cared for the American solider as much as we applauded for the American flag? (Hint: it probably does not look like limiting access to healthcare to veterans, including delays in necessary treatments.) Many privileged Americans like myself have been able to go through life with war feeling like more of an abstraction — something other people fight for us. It’s in this gap of experience and empathy where cinema can help us understand the gravity of armed conflict so that we never enter into it needlessly.

Yesterday for paid subscribers, I wrote an extended ode to William Wyler’s The Best Years of Our Lives (available on Amazon Prime Video and Peacock), a film that I think is among the finest human dramas ever made about the wartime experience.

That’s in large part because it’s very much about what it means for us as spectators to understand intellectually without experiencing it viscerally. I’d recommend clearing the 170 minutes to watch. (Unlike a certain blockbuster current gracing the screens, it manages to be well-paced throughout the entirety…)

Here are nine other films that I think also understand the experience of the American soldier and provide something beyond chest-thumping jingoism or knee-jerk support for the military-industrial complex. I do believe there is a way to support the troops without condoning some of the worst offenses and oversights of the institution.

The Big Red One, available to rent from various digital platforms

Director Samuel Fuller was himself a veteran of the 1st Infantry Division, whose exploits during World War II he portrays in The Big Red One. This film has a diaristic quality to the point of feeling almost like memory. It’s remarkably light on sensationalism as it follows the group from North Africa through France and finally to the liberation of a concentration camp. Fuller’s specialty was in genre filmmaking that could make an audience think about the elemental nature of violence, and that’s no different in a war film. There are moments of this film that feel remarkably stripped of cinematic convention, dwelling simply on the raw experience of being in a larger-than-life moment but having only a limited range of human reactions to such a thing.

The Covenant, Amazon Prime Video

I would not have expected Guy Ritchie in the middle of an insanely prolific streak that produced King Arthur: Legend of the Sword and Aladdin to make one of the better movies about the Afghanistan conflict, but here we are. Jake Gyllenhaal stars as the American soldier at his best as his Green Beret upholds the honor and bond with his local language interpreter. When the two get separated in a Taliban ambush and Gyllenhaal’s John Kinley gets a ticket back to America, he insists on returning to the danger zone to bring his partner, Dar Salim’s Ahmed Abdullah, to safety. I found the film genuinely moving, alongside being a thrilling rescue story. (I should also note: America is currently in the process of shamefully turning its back on our Afghan allies who have resettled here. And all for some Internet-hyped nonsense about reverse racism against white Afrikaners. Deplorable, some might say.)

Da 5 Bloods, Netflix

As we await Spike Lee’s next feature this summer, it’d be a great time to make sure you’ve caught up with Da 5 Bloods if you missed it during the pandemic. This epic about a group of Black Vietnam veterans returning to the country searching for the remains of a lost leader — and a treasure left behind — works as both a classical adventure in the vein of John Huston and a piercing contemporary portrait of the scars borne by a generation of survivors. While awards are not life’s report card, it’s a crime that no major awards body recognized Delroy Lindo’s sensational turn as a PTSD-riddled man in search of an absolution beyond any material good. He’s such a potent force holding the screen that he manages to defuse any controversy or potential provocation around his character wearing a MAGA hat by selling his evolution across the decades as entirely natural.

The Greatest Beer Run Ever, Apple TV+

I know that the last thing you’d expect from a “serious” critic like me is to recommend Peter Farrelly’s follow-up to the ignominious Best Picture-winning Green Book, but I like to keep you on your toes as a straight shooter widely respected on both sides. This film gets a lot of mileage (and plausible deniability) from casting an affable Zac Efron as its guileless lead “Chickie,” a homeboy who embarks on a foolhardy quest to deliver local beer to his friends serving in Vietnam. He starts the journey as an unabashed patriot, chiding his peace-marching sister, and emerges with a much clearer-eyed portrait of what his pals are laying down their lives to defend. The Greatest Beer Run Ever is silly when it needs to be and somber when it has to be.

The Messenger, Peacock

Oren Moverman’s The Messenger captures the very start of the memorialization process as it follows two enlisted men (Ben Foster and Woody Harrelson) assigned to notify the families of killed soldiers. It’s a tough job, and they deal with some furious people (the most memorable of which is a livid father played by Steve Buscemi). They eventually grow used to the reactions and train themselves to be callous to the anguish of the families, largely by sticking to a set script. Yet they never allow themselves to be a broken record, always performing their duties with the intent of honoring the fallen soldier. It gives them quite a shock whenever one wife, Olivia (Samantha Morton), anticipates their bad tidings and shows little emotion at receiving the news. Her unusual calmness rattles them both, particularly Foster’s Ben Montgomery, who winds up forging a deep connection with her.

A Midnight Clear, Amazon Prime Video and Peacock

A common trope in war movies is turning ordinary man into extraordinary figures by virtue of their participation in the war. A Midnight Clear flips that formula on its head by following a group of American recon squad assembled based on their high intelligence and walking us through an episode of World War II that they endure together. These clever combatants, most notably Ethan Hawke’s heady Will Knott, ponder the thin line between humanity and atrocity as a German unit appears willing to surrender with the war winding down. It never goes fully transcendental in the vein of Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line, but it gets pretty close while keeping two feet planted firmly on the ground of this tragically ironic tale of mistaken interpretations.

Saving Private Ryan, Peacock

In 2008, Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks teamed up to produce a tribute to veterans called A Timeless Call. Hanks’ closing narration imparts the following message:

“We ask these men and women to turn themselves from civilians into soldiers, then we ask them to go from warriors overnight to being colleagues, friends, and parents again. Two monumental challenges, and yet generation after generation, they do it. They lay down their lives for the land and the dream that is America, the dream that is lifted high on their shoulders — and one that lifts all of us. That no matter how different we appear from one another, we are there for one another. One nation, one people, living in freedom — a freedom that is won and protected by these ordinary, extraordinary Americans.”

Watching Saving Private Ryan, you don’t just hear those words but believe them. It’s no wonder this visceral veneration of the sacrifices made by World War II veterans is cited as the reason why so many of the surviving soldiers of that conflict began opening up about their experiences. “The mission is a man,” so states the film’s slogan, and Spielberg never loses sight of the deeply personal motivations underlying the horrific violence between nations that he documents.

Three Kings, available to rent from various digital platforms

David O. Russell’s Three Kings begins with a premise that seems like the height of colonialism: a treasure hunt in the middle of an invaded land during Operation Desert Storm. Following a map they found in a prisoner’s butt and their unbounded desires to strike it rich, four American soldiers traverse through dangerous territories in Iraq waving the banner of freedom as a figurative Kevlar vest for their unauthorized journey. However, what the quartet ends up finding on their journey amounts to a whole lot more than gold. Three Kings is not just about an expedition for plunder; it’s about what happens when humanity gets in the way of the mission. Along the way, the four soldiers encounter many situations with two choices: helping themselves or helping innocent Iraqi citizens. George Clooney’s Major Archie Gates and company find it harder and harder to choose in self-interest despite getting closer and closer to the gold. Russell’s movie is a powerful testament to the kindness of the soul and how it can remain intact, even during war.

Warfare, available to rent from various digital platforms

I’d hoped to have the online figure VyceVictus, himself a veteran of the Iraq War, to discuss Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza’s recently-released Warfare. (I’ll refer you to his recently aired thoughts on the Action 4 Everyone podcast.)

His reaction provided a welcome breath of fresh air among responses that I’ve largely clocked as reflecting their source’s pre-existing political predispositions. (To quote Anaïs Nin, “We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.”) I respected the radical decision by Garland and Mendoza to decontextualize the entire film as they document a single mission from start to finish. There’s no mythology, no narrative, no outside agenda — just the pure reality of what it takes to survive an attack. Before people rush to argue what the film does or doesn’t support, perhaps they ought to just stare the reality of Warfare in the face since it’s drawn exclusively from the memories of the men who lived to tell the tale.

For Slant Magazine, I reviewed Wes Anderson’s new movie, The Phoenician Scheme. I seemed to be a little higher on this than the Cannes crowd — see it when it opens in NY/LA on May 30 and nationwide on June 6.

You can keep track of all the freelance writing I’ve done this year through this list on Letterboxd.

You can always keep up with my film-watching in real-time on the app Letterboxd. I’ve also compiled every movie I’ve ever recommended through this newsletter via a list on the platform as well.

Sweet summertime.

Maybe we should have seen the Lilo & Stitch box office bonanza coming — this New York Times report (gift article) on the Stitch merch boom was news to me!

Zach Baron of GQ has a great behind-the-scenes look at the making of the Mission: Impossible series, which is as much a spiritual exploration as it is tactical. Bonus: Tom Cruise makes a cameo over email.

I’m somewhat … heartened (?) by this Gen Z focus group about movies conducted by Matt Belloni on Puck (gift article).

Back to you next weekend!

Drive My Car, 2021. © Sideshow

Yours in service and cinema,
Marshall