THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, November 9, 1994 TAG: 9411090029
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E8 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Movie Review
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, MOVIE CRITIC
LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines
WAS IT TOO MUCH to hope that lightning would strike again?
Apparently so.
When Jan Avnet, the director of ``Fried Green Tomatoes,'' announced that he was going to the South again, there was every reason to hope that, at long last, we would again get a movie about real, down-home, folks. Avnet is a Yankee boy who grew up in Great Neck, N.Y., but, if ``Fried Green Tomatoes'' was an indication, has a real feel for the rural South.
It's difficult, though, to find much grit in his new film ``The War.'' It is well-intentioned, earnest, and has some fine individual moments - particularly when it is centered on the children of tiny Juliette, Miss., and their nostalgic woes in growing up. Unfortunately, however, it tries to take on too much - particularly adult trauma, poverty, and, most laborious of all, the Vietnam war.
The unfortunate title refers to a belabored symbolism between the Vietnam debacle and local kids' fight over a precious tree house they have built. With flashback to Daddy's traumatic Vietnam experiences interspersed with the children's battle, it's all too overwrought and obvious. In the end, the main parallel seems to be that both Vietnam and the movie are endless, expensive and pointless - not exactly the allegory intended.
Father Kevin Costner has returned from the war with so much angst that he can't hold a job. Mama, Mare Winningham, lives, apparently, to suffer - holding down two jobs to try to put food on the table at their welfare-shack. Winningham, once the most promising of yesteryear's brat pack, is, yet again, underused and plays merely a stereotyped door mat - always doing the dishes and looking sad.
Costner, yet again, is self conscious in the obvious realization that he is really a movie star and not a soul-troubled wretch. His nobility is too noble, and his shirts are too well-pressed. Much has been written about Costner's sacrifice in taking a supporting role here. The movie would have been better if his role was even smaller.
Things are better, much better, when the movie sticks with the children of the town. Elijah Wood, as ``the son,'' is growing easily from child actor to actor. Leading the pack, by a big margin, is newcomer Lexi Randall, as the tomboy sister whose team of girls keeps horning in on the building of the tree house. She's a freckled delight. The movie's best moment comes when she and her two African-American girlfriends do their rendition of The Supremes' hits - complete right down to the step-lively choreography.
The dreaded enemy is the dirt-poor Lipnicki family, which lives down the road. Egged on by their snarling, alcoholic, father, these bullies want to take over the tree house.
The period is the 1970s, but it looks like the old ``Tobacco Road'' stereotype in which, yet again, Hollywood sees the South as primitive beyond primitive. The accents are so thick that they are sometimes indiscernible. Christine Baranski, as a bigoted school teacher, is among the worst.
As long as the film sticks with the children, and simplicity, it is pleasurable. When it starts beating us over the head with its sense of spirituality and ``message,'' things get too obvious not to stir snickers. The message is that war is no good. Daddy Costner keeps telling li'l Elijah that there is little worth fighting about. Just to make it clear, we have all these flashbacks to gory Vietnam.
At its best, ``The War'' smacks of the joys of ``Stand by Me.'' At its worst, it tries to be a Greek tragedy. MEMO: MOVIE REVIEW
``The War''
Cast: Elijah Wood, Kevin Costner, Mare Winningham, Lexi Randall,
Christine Baranski, Raynor Scheine
Director: Jon Avnet
Screenplay: Kathy McWorter
MPAA rating: PG-13 (some mildly rough language and war scenes)
Mal's rating: 2 stars
Locations: Movies 10 in Chesapeake; Janaf and Main Gate in Norfolk;
Kemps River, Lynnhaven 8 and Pembroke in Virginia Beach by CNB