A GOOD WAR FILM THAT COULD’VE BEEN GREAT
Ang Lee, ordinarily a painstaking director, occasionally drops the ball
When Chris Tucker’s character in Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk refers to someone’s remarks as “a true movie moment,” his words couldn’t ring more true. Here is a film based on a novel in which a group of American soldiers are hoping to have their wartime tale turned into a motion picture. The very fact that you’re watching it up there on the screen means they’ve succeeded!
But there’s much more going on than that. Based on Ben Fountain’s 2012 novel, the story is set in the crucible where American tribalism, patriotism, militarism, jingoism, sexism and Destiny’s Child (Beyonce-ism) collide and thrive: a football game’s halftime show — in Dallas, no less.
Billy Lynn is among the guests of honour. Weeks earlier — the film is set in 2004, near the beginning of the U.S.-led Iraq War — he was part of an army squad that was caught on video during a firefight. Billy in particular performed heroically, fighting in close quarters in defence of a fallen comrade.
Now the survivors of “Bravo Squad,” as the media have dubbed them, are nearing the end of a two-week victory lap back home, designed to honour their accomplishment but also to drum up support for the conflict.
British actor Joe Alwyn, in his first film role, is both fully invested and completely believable as a virginal, 19-year-old soldier; he’s been trained to fight and kill, but most social interactions — including with a cheerleader (Makenzie Leigh) he meets backstage — still freak him out. He’s most at ease around his sister (Kristen Stewart), who all but demands that he declare he has post-traumatic stress disorder and remain in the States when his squad ships back out. (In fact, at least two of Billy’s fellow soldiers are worse off than he is in that regard.)
The tension between codes of conduct during war and peace — again, nowhere more confused than at a football game and its fireworks-laden halftime show — is what drives the narrative forward, with director Ang Lee cutting back and forth in time and memory. One moment Billy is at the stadium, the next he’s back in Iraq.
In Dallas, all anyone wants to know is how it felt to be there; in country, no one asks because everyone already knows.
Some of these scenes and transitions work beautifully; others shudder and clang so painfully that I wondered if Lee, such a patient, thoughtful, thorough director, might have been off the set when they were filmed.
Two examples of the latter: a news conference written with such a tin ear that it plays like a parody and another moment when some stagehands, smarting after two previous scuffles with the soldiers, lay in wait for more fisticuffs. Really?
The members of Billy’s multiracial squad are mostly obscure or unknown actors, but they perform well; particularly Arturo Castro as a Hispanic recruit nicknamed Mango. Garrett Hedlund as Staff Sgt.
Dime is probably the biggest name on the team, and has great chemistry with the (slightly) younger Billy.
Vin Diesel, meanwhile, appears only in flashbacks as the curiously soft-spoken Shroom, a real warrior-poet.
There’s also Steve Martin, playing the oleaginous owner of the football team. He’s keen to help back Bravo Squad’s filmic aspirations, but only if he can be guaranteed a profit. Billy’s response to this philosophy, late in the film, comprises that “true movie moment.”
If Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk had just a few more of those, it would be a truly astounding movie.
As it stands, it’s just good enough to let you really notice its intermittent flaws.