Eye Candy #66 - "Revolution Re-visited"

Revolution Re-visited: Never saw the original version of this film (sans narration), but if this version is an improvement, that version must have been nigh unwatchable. Directed by Hugh Hudson (who gave us “Chariots of Fire”, his first major film, which means he peaked almost immediately and never achieved the same level of success, as he followed it with “Greystoke - The Legend of Tarzan” and this hooey), this film dramatizes the American Revolutionary War. Al Pacino is miscast as trapper Tom Dobb who, through the machinations of his incredibly stupid son Ned, find himself knee-deep in a war he’s not all that fond of. Seriously, Ned does the wrong, dumb thing so often and predictably, he’s a plot device, not a character. All around Tom are colonists caught up in revolution fever, with a mania that would make Madame Defarge proud. Nastassjia Kinski as an extremely naïve colonist caught up in the fervor. Opposing him is the also-miscast Donald Sutherland as Sgt. Major Peasy, with an accent so bad, he might as well be speaking pig latin, he’s that unintelligible. Totaled together, it‘s a fine mess of a film. Visually, it just looks BAD and the film stock hasn‘t aged well. The editing is lousy, the cinematography would benefit from a steadicam almost constantly. And the plot…well, it takes a special script to suck the life out of the American Revolution. All I really took away from this film is that the 18th century was dirty. And the narration that supposedly makes this all better? It’s very poorly written, making the film sound like a fife-and-drum version of “Apocalypse Now”. I keep expecting Pacino to say, “I wanted a mission. And for my sins, they gave me one.“ Whoopity-doo. We do get early Graham Greene and Dexter Fletcher, though. Woodchuck sez, “Just as bad as everyone says it is.”