Can there be virtue in middlebrow movies? On the basis of "The Last Samurai," I'd have to say, yes - sometimes. Emphatically so.
Everything about this handsome potboiler suggests a film thoughtfully gazing at the horizon instead of deceiving audiences, in this era of bogus epics, about its ability to reach the stars. No one involved - not narrowly focused producer-star Tom Cruise, not welterweight director Edward Zwick ("Glory"), not the skilled but overrated screenwriter John Logan ("Gladiator") - has an interest in throwing this likely Oscar contender out of its careful, minor-classic balance of warrior fraternity, heroic spectacle and glancing spirituality. Within safe parameters, "Samurai"'s story about a dissolute, guilt-ridden, 19th-century U.S. Army officer who finds redemption by metamorphizing into his enemy is a moving but not profound winner.
If that sounds like a backhanded compliment, it's not. "The Last Samurai" is a very attractive entertainment, easy to sink into precisely because of its satisfaction with its own limits. Certainly, it could be much more. A quarter-century ago, perhaps, "Samurai" might have been a much tougher, less sanguine fable, less concerned with destiny's pretty symmetries and more with the deterministic fallout of men's flaws. Such a film might have been written by the likes of John Milius ("The Wind and the Lion") and directed, say, by Walter Hill ("The Long Riders").
But "The Last Samurai" is what it is in 2003. Cruise plays Captain Nathan Algren, an Indian fighter, survivor of Custer's Last Stand and Winchester-shooting sideshow attraction when we first meet him. Algren's shame over atrocities he helped visit upon innocent natives (a point made unimaginatively by Zwick, a longtime television producer, in TV-movie-like, slow-motion flashbacks) has turned him into an alcoholic shell. Things change when Algren's old sergeant (Billy Connolly) drags him to Japan and a lucrative job training the Emperor's green troops in the art of Western-style warfare.
Irony of ironies, Algren's mercenary commission is under the command of an old enemy, Colonel Bagley (Tony Goldwyn), a wanton Indian killer who jabs insistently at the open wound that is Algren's conscience. Bagley's careless decision to rush unprepared soldiers into a field fight against fierce samurai results in Algren's capture and removal to a remote, rebel village led by Katsumoto (Ken Watanabe). The latter's intuition tells him Algren's path intertwines mysteriously with his own, and Katsumoto aims to find out precisely how.
Algren eventually adapts to the deliberate pace and transcendent disciplines of his new world, shaking off booze and self-torment. He rediscovers honor, clears his head of overthinking (essential to his lessons in swordplay), and comes to care for his hostess, Taka (Koyuki), and her children - that is to say, the family of a samurai Algren killed in battle. He also finds kinship with Katsumoto, and fights beside him - the two look like a preternaturally gifted, two-headed beast at times - when push comes to shove in the film's bloody third act.
Key to "The Last Samurai"'s storytelling is Zwick and Cruise's strategy not to get ahead of Algren's studied immersion in Katsumoto's world. Since our on-the-road-to-redemption hero can't instantly understand everything about his new surroundings, the filmmakers get away with handy, cultural reductiveness. Nothing is imperfect in the samurai village, but everything is wrong about Algren's roots. Statues of Buddha and images of extensive meditation allude to a powerful spiritual base without elaboration. The closer Algren gets to Katsumoto, the more Zwick withdraws from the substance of their candid talks.
The audience fills in the blanks, and "The Last Samurai" is free to mythologize and romanticize as it sees fit. And why not? The film is always upfront about its scope and intentions, and once you're on board, there are pleasures to enjoy and nothing to lose. The film's exciting physical production and John Toll's brush-painting cinematography are nothing to sneeze at. While Cruise is least effective in Algren's burned-out state, he is captivating in the rest of the film.
Cruise's many co-stars are thoroughly wonderful: a formidable Watanabe, above all; but also Timothy Spall as a toadying translator, the regal Koyuki, and Hiroyuki Sanada ("Ringu") as Algren's uncompromising samurai trainer. A critical role - that of Japan's ambivalent and youthful Emperor Meiji, struggling to reconcile Western modernism with ancient tradition-is played soulfully by Shichinosuke Nakamura.
Though it could have been much more, "The Last Samurai," working hard within its comfort zone, is still a poignant experience.
Tom Keogh is a frequent contributor to the Magnolia News.[[In-content Ad]]
