Barney Greenwald, a skeptical lawyer, reluctantly defends an officer of the navy who took control of the Caine from its captain, Lt. Philip Francis Queeg, while caught in a violent sea storm. As the court-martial proceeds, however, Greenwald increasingly questions if it was truly a mutiny or rather the courageous acts of a group of sailors who could not trust their unstable leader.
Bunt przed sądem wojskowym, L'ammutinamento del Caine - Corte Marziale, 케인호의 반란, Bunt przed sądem wojennym, 凯恩舰哗变, L'affaire de la mutinerie du Caine, Военный трибунал по делу о мятеже на «Кейне», El Juicio Del Motín Del Caine, Keino karo teismas, Vojno sodišče Caine Mutiny, A Corte Marcial Da Nave Da Revolta, El juicio del motín del Caine, Suđenje za pobunu na brodu Caine, Военният съд над бунтарите от "Кейн", Zendülés a Caine hadihajón, Die Caine-Meuterei vor Gericht, Військовий трибунал по справі про заколот на Кейні
Italy
Venice International Film Festival
USAPG-13
Poland12
Italy
France
Puerto RicoPG-13
USAPG-13
France
Italy
Poland
Puerto Rico
USA
A rock solid farewell for William Friedkin. That this sturdy, unflashy showcase of performance and careful writing debuts the same weekend as the cruddy Exorcist sequel really puts things in perspective.
William Friedkin always seemed to steady his work through adaptations of plays, his singular no-bullshit style the perfect sensibility to know the exact right amount of filmmaking to add to the source material, without taking away from the highly curated minimalism that is inherent in most great plays. Totally lost as a young filmmaker, coming off making a (bad) Sonny and Cher movie, it was an adaptation of Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party where William Friedkin found his cinematic voice. Coming off a series of flops in the 1990s, it was a 12 Angry Men adaptation that helped him regain his confidence. And left for dead, seen as a has-been after The Hunted, his last chance at a studio picture,…
A movie about vulnerable men made by a vulnerable man who has reflected on life and accepted his fate. The wide shots of Kiefer Sutherland smell like Stetson, piss, vanity, and success.
Though maybe less famous for it, Friedkin spent just as much of his career in the more contained, minimalist style of tension/pressure of the stage as he did the hell-on-earth action-thriller. So a very classical courtroom drama with a minute focus on the abuse of institutional power, flawed psychology, and intense feelings of isolation/paranoia is actually a fitting final statement for him, even if it has a bit of a too-clean digital TV movie sheen to it. Fredkin handles himself very well with the austere geography of the courtroom and the sharply pointed rhythms (in the cutting and performances) of two competing cases/stories being laid out about a young, disgruntled executive officer and his cruel, perhaps senile commander whom he…
As a fan of the "William Friedkin shoots around an enclosed room" genre, this is pretty riveting stuff. Formally strong, and the play limiting the action to the trial puts Friedkin's gifts with off-screen to great use. Treating the trial as the collision of two narratives that are carefully staged by the lawyers works great too. Friedkin is a very literal-minded filmmaker with a weakness for provocation, so updating the action to 2022 can be awkward (the lawyer's final drunk speech is likely to be hard to take for progressives anyway, but of course Friedkin directs Clarke to hang on "he served for 21 years") and unlike the Altman version, there's barely any stab at questioning Wouk very military point…
Action!: Friedkin, The Realist
So I’m not only glad this film marks the end of Friedkin’s career, as it makes his career pretty close on a full circle. In many ways, the film sees him back to basics while staying in the same lane as he has been for the past decade or so, focusing and directing this one-setting stage adaptation where he gets to gather all these great actors and exploit their talents to build the tension, the suspense, and all the drama, with Sutherland and Clarke being easily the standouts, the latter once again proving he just has such a natural talent to play these rather unlikeable and ruthless characters, even though he’s supposed to be one you…
Simple, stellar— the kind of movie (among many) that perfectly captures what made Friedkin such a special director.
The man just knew how to make a movie. Full review: www.vulture.com/article/william-friedkins-final-film-makes-you-question-everything.html
R.I.P. William Friedkin and Lance Reddick. This is an excellent courtroom drama, something we don’t get very often anymore. Jason Clarke, Keifer Sutherland and Lance Reddick all deliver excellent performances, particularly Clarke’s impassioned speech at the end and his final parting shot. Based on a stage-play and contained to a single location, the production isn’t flashy. There’s minimal camera flourishes and the opening in particular felt more like a made for tv movie than a feature film. But it doesn’t detract from the drama at all. I was actually completely engrossed from start to finish. Highly recommend.
Degrees of Kevin Bacon: 1
1. Kiefer Sutherland and Kevin Bacon in A Few Good Men
170/200
Cleanliness (of framing, of faces, of uniforms, of surfaces) betrayed by interior disorder and a rusty chain of command. Friedkin properly began his career with The Birthday Party, in which existential and abstract badgering provokes dormant madness and erases a person, and ends it with Caine, in which two men, perfect at first glance, are dismantled by words that describe an unknown, and thus they become part of that unknown. Great gales of dialogue standing in for an unseen cyclone, as one blue blood tries to climb into the skin of another (among other virtues: this movie is perfectly cast. Lance Reddick, to the surprise of nobody, acquits himself stupendously in his final performance). All this formality is a charade. There are no heroes here. Just figureheads waiting for a chance to talk themselves to pieces, to bury themselves with their pride.
