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Captain Nathan Algren's (Tom Cruise) life
is a mess. He has no money. He drinks till the cows come home. The
one-time Civil War hero has stooped to promoting Winchester rifles for
money. And he is haunted by shameful actions from his past - which
probably at least partially accounts for his drinking problems. Algren
is offered a job in Japan where he and a few fellow Americans will train
an inexperienced Japanese army in the art of modern warfare. This army
will then be used to squash a Samurai uprising that has been preventing
the "modernization" of Japan and the construction of the
country's first railroad system. In the ensuing battle, Algren is
captured by the Samurai, where the tribe's leader Katsumoto (Ken
Watanabe) sees something in Algren that he likes. Soon Algren is taught
the way of the Samurai - living by the sword, living with your mind and
living with honour.
In doing a bit of research on The Last Samurai, I came across the
following quotes being associated with the movie - "The Best Movie
of All Time", "The Best Movie of the Decade", "One
of the most powerful movies I've ever seen" and "In a word,
poetic". One person also said "Lame" and an interesting
one was "Braveheart meets Seven Years in Tibet". I think
calling The Last Samurai the best movie of all time might be stretching
it a bit. Lame? It is not a lame movie. The Braveheart/Seven Years in
Tibet analogy? Sort of funny and I guess when you think about it, I
could see where that came from. I actually had thoughts of both movies
while watching Samurai. Especially Braveheart, a movie which, in many
ways, has set the benchmark for all epic battle movies that will follow.
Although I thoroughly enjoyed Samurai, I would not say it is in the same
league as Braveheart.
Samurai lacked the raw emotion elicited from a movie like Braveheart.
Although Samurai is an emotional roller coaster of a movie, there were
times when the movie was a bit slow. In the end, you do cheer for the
samurai. You do respect the samurai. You may even shed a tear for the
samurai. But Tom Cruise's Nathan Algren will not leave the lasting
impression that Mel Gibson's William Wallace has left on many of us.
Algren was a good character - his interaction with the children in the
samurai village was excellent; he had some genuinely funny moments in
the movie; and he had really good hair (but a bad beard), as opposed to
Wallace's terrible hairdo. But in the end, I found Algren scowled way
too much. He could have smiled and laughed a few times between the
beatings he took. He had a pained look on his face for much of the
movie. He looked like he was passing a kidney stone way too often. I
liked Algren and I respected him but didn't connect with him like I
would have liked. Plus, I found his love story a bit strange. The love
story was a very minor part of the movie, but not a totally believable
story. Under the circumstances I am not too sure how the Japanese woman
fell for Algren. It would have been more believable if maybe she would
have slit his throat in the middle of the night, or at least tried to do
that. On the other hand, in Braveheart, William Wallace had two genuine
love interests and threw some one-liners at them that had me falling for
him. To this day, I still try some of those lines on various women, unsuccessfully
I might add. Which leads me to another problem I had with Samurai, the
dialogue. I found at times, the dialogue to be a bit weak and shallow.
There were not many deep, inspiring conversations. There were many
moments of silence, many appropriate, given the way of the samurai, but
other times, we could have used a rally speech or something to that
effect.
But despite the weak dialogue, at times, The Last Samurai did manage to
have some very intense moments. Algren's capture, Algren being beaten by
sticks, the final battle scene - they were all outstanding moments in
this movie. The final battle scene was also one to behold - both
intelligent and intense. The end of the battle was brilliant. Without
getting into too much detail or ruining the movie for anyone, I loved
what they did here. They showed us that this movie was not about Nathan
Algren, Tom Cruise or anything like that. They showed us that this movie
was about Katsumoto and the samurai. What a great moment in the movie.
Visually, The Last Samurai is a wonderful movie. It's cinematography is
outstanding. The recreation of 1876 Japan, although I was never there or
have never been to present-day Japan for that matter, is everything I
could imagine it to be. The movie portrays a certain calmness in the
Japanese countryside, a feeling that is reflective of the lifestyle of
the samurai - when they are not kicking some serious ass, that is. The
battlewear of the samurai was also quite awe-inspiring. But this movie
had more to it than the look and the feel. At many times, it had a
majestic feel to it, a feeling that can be directly attributed to the
outstanding performance of Ken Watanabe. He plays the samurai warrior to
perfection. Watanabe's Katsumoto was a man who was respected by all -
including his arch enemies. He said few words but in many scenes his
eyes did the talking. The character Watanabe brought to this movie
earned every ounce of this respect.
In the end, I will say that I really, really liked The Last Samurai.
There was much to like and love about this movie, but in no way did I
walk out of this movie thinking I had just seen one of the best movies
of all-time. The best movie of the year? Well, one of them. I don't
think it is a shoe-in to win the Oscar, yet. If anything, Ken Watanabe
at least deserves a nomination. Any emotion that was felt could be
directly linked to Katsumoto. Cruise had a couple of good moments (once
again, the scene of him being beaten down with the wooden sticks comes
to mind) but his effect on this movie paled in comparison to Watanabe's.
I also really liked the dude who played Katsumoto's right hand man and
trusty general. He's the guy who kept beating down Cruise with the
wooden stick. Unfortunately, I am not too sure of his name, but he was
another character who's actions and eyes far outweighed the words he
said in the movie.
Seeing The Last Samurai reminded me a lot of last year, when I went to
another movie with high expectations, Gangs of New York. I left that
movie disappointed. I went into The Last Samurai with similar lofty
expectations but left the theatre very satisfied. I knew what I had just
seen was a well-directed, well-written, well-acted piece of cinema. Not
the greatest ever, but certainly well worth seeing and certainly one of
the best movies of the year.
  
- 7.5/10
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Brendan Cullin - Senior Editor
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