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Sunday December 7th 1941 at 07.55 marked a turning point in world war two for America and the world as a whole.
Who'd have thought back then that Hollywood would decide to
mark the era with a $139 million dollar movie, portraying the events at Pearl harbour with reasonable accuracy.
Responding to demands for more accurate historical fact rather than fiction, no expense was spared with the script writing,
though the film did gloss over the ineptitude on the part of some sections of American intelligence.
Opening on June 1st in the USA and Europe, it didn’t smash any opening box office records, despite intensive hype on the
Internet and other media forums.
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Nor did it receive too favourable a response from the Irish reviewers either.
I think they erred on the side of caution and concentrated on the love story a bit too much, rating it alongside that of
Titanic and the Leo De Caprio saga. |
This two hour 55 minute long epic had to be filled with something and there is only so much aerial bombardment one can take..
The film kicks off with two youngsters playing with dummy aircraft on their father’s crop dusting farm in
rural Tennessee (actually California).
Cut to the two boys enrolled in the air force, Captain Rafe McCawley (Ben Affleck) and Captain Danny Walker played by Josh Hartnett.
Rafe was desperate for action in terms of women and aerial dog fights. He successfully woo’s one of the army nurses - Kate Beckensale who plays the part of Lieutenant Evelyn Stewart and soon a relationship develops!
McCawley volunteers for action in an American air force wing based in the UK.
Naturally enough we have the tear shedding by the lieutenant at the train station as Rafe departs..
no runny make up here…. Yeha, for Max factor lip-gloss!
We soon see Rafe in dogfights over the straits of Dover with the Germans. With a few successes under his belt,
he goes one battle to many and is shot down over the English Channel…glug glug!!! That took a whole hour, before he was got rid of! |
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Cut back to America and Danny who took the more pragmatic view and didn’t go seeking trouble, if he didn’t have to!
Posted to the pacific fleet headquarters in Hawaii at Pearl Harbour, which happened also to play host to Beckensale and the other nurse orderlies…yawn! The inevitable happened and with Rafe posted as missing, presumed dead - Danny took up residence in the heart of the nurse.
Affleck did his Bobby Ewing shower trick and reappeared from the dead, his will to survive and be reunited with his love gave him enough oxygen to climb out of his sunken aircraft and be rescued by a passing French fisherman……..(we will leave out the bit how he isn’t shot by the Germans in occupied France and takes the Concorde to Hawaii!!!!!!!!!!
Anyway he turns up as his best pal, since childhood, is having a jolly old time with this moth! Being war time, he musten have had access to a condom… ( where was
Conor and the Johnny team? ), because she ended up pregnant by Danny.!!
(all very Mills and Boon)
Cut to the HQ of the Japanese air force and pacific fleet…. Japan at that time was in peace discussions with the US, trying to find a formula to resolve the recently imposed oil embargo by the US government on that country, as a sanction for the invasion of French Indo China, a county now called Vietnam. Excellent acting too by Jon Voight who played the part of FDR Roosevelt whose jaw trembling arguments with his war cabinet capture the mood of the time.
The peace attempts were not going well and the Japanese navy and air force decided on a pre-emptive strike on the heart of the pacific fleet, which was nicely cuddled together at Pearl Harbour. Spies based in Hawaii provided much needed information on the fleet in the Port and the US weak link was their inability to break the Japanese codes. The Japanese fleet admiral Yamamoto was much praised for his "Brilliant plan" to lead false trails as to the whereabouts of their fleet, until they were within bombing range of Pearl harbour which lead to one of the quotes of the film by the aforesaid admiral "A brilliant man, would find a way to avoid war altogether"
The last forty minutes comprised of the actual bombing of Pearl Harbour with some dramatic scenes and stage-managed sinkings. In reality, it took two hours and 2,500 Americans lay dead and thousands more injured and American pride was at its lowest. Quite where they got enough airworthy aircraft, I don’t know. Present day warships of the US navy were used as extras in this film and some navy buffs picked out missile defence systems on board the modern fleet J
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My opinion of the film?
Yeah, I would go to it, don’t think its as bad as made out by press reviews.
Ben Affleck has changed somewhat in appearance from his days in earlier films like Dogma and Good Will Hunting but actually, I much preferred his stable mate Josh Hartnett …quite taken by those lips of his!! Reminds me of a neighbour I had a crush on once..
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