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User Reviews for: The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial

lezelmaz
/10  7 months ago
I enjoyed @tgrbabydoll's review; however, I'd like for it to be fleshed out with more detailed criticism. Service anecdotes add to the conversation, and I wish I had more insight about that.

I watched this version first and thought I'd enjoy the Robert Altman (1988) adaptation better. I agree that setting it in contemporary times does nothing for the story. But the Altman version is truly terrible. I haven't read the text, but it seems like Altman expanded the identity politics with a drunken Greenwald in his final soliloquy, going into gruesome detail about his mom being turned into a bar of soap in WWII. Or developing (in a ranty by Queeg on the stand) allegations of homosexuality of the other officers. However, the worst part of the 1988 adaption is Altman's stylistic signature of overlapping dialogue. It's an inventive and great bespoke style for a film like MASH, but reduces this courtroom drama to a weird, boring cocktail party vibe.

I don't have much to add to the 2023 adaptation except that I feel a lot more generous about it after watching Altman's previous version. Kiefer Sutherland (Queeg), Jason Clarke (Lt. Greenwald), and Land Reddick (Captain Blakely) are particularly strong standouts. I feel like the 2023 adaptation suffers from a different kind of identity politics, solipsism, in the sense that perhaps the plot requires itself to be updated in order to accommodate ethnic diversity in casting. I'm all for identity politics in civics life and, well, in politics. I'm for it in art, too, where it brings an authentic POV. But I hate it as a formulaic "solution" in art, which this film seems to be guilty of.

The old studio system seems to be the standing winner with its played-out The Cain Mutiny (1954), which is a shame because the POV of a stripped-down courtroom drama is a really appealing alternate way to tell this compelling story.
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