I am sad to say that I am disappointed by this film, because I remember it being a big deal when I was growing up and I recall my brother liking it alot. I love teen films, and I love survival stories, like Red Dawn. But this film's love of tradition fails the main thrust of the narrative as it marches head long into anti-social territory.
And I disagree with Roger Ebert, which I also find sad, since I generally find so much coherence in his reviews.
It starts out well. Timothy Hutton, Sean Penn and George C. Scott are great.
But Tom Cruise is just a douchebag. How could any of the other cadets be friends with such a jerk. It struck me as odd at first, but I wrote it off as perhaps something I don't understand about boys or military schools. I supposed that at a boarding school that everyone learns to love something about each other in such a closed environment. Who finds that guy attractive? I don't get it. (Btw I have always felt like this and it is not a result of his bizarro behavior in the past few years.)
Ebert makes an analogy between the school in which
Taps is based and
Lord of the Flies, which are a book and films that I love. I appreciate this analogy and it holds until 2/3s of the way into the film when the story gets stuck.
The students hold their military school with weapons and barricades against the state guard who want to close the school and send the boys home. Timothy Hutton is the head cadet, Sean Penn is his booksmart best friend with existential issues. Tom Cruise is their cohort who is tough and ruthless.
Evan Handler is great as another friend who doesn't seem so gung-ho. His character isn't so easily typed, but he comes off as a good guy. And so cute as a young kid! Cute as a grown up too, imo.
spoiler alert So in the end a youngster gets killed accidentally and Hutton berates himself. There is a nice moment when his character talks about how it feels to hold a dead boy in his arms and to just think about what a neat kid he was. It's tender and it works. So the conscience of the film, Sean Penn, talks him into declaring victory and just going home. As they bring all the boys in to end the stand off, Tom Cruise's character decides to shoot the commanding officer of the state guard and then grabs an automatic gigantic gun and just goes nuts. He says, "It's beautiful, man!" just before he and the intervening Hutton get killed. I agree that there are kids who just want to go for it and enjoy the exhilaration of violence, who would have a hard time backing down. What's wrong with
this kid, though? What did he learn that no one else did? Or if this is a possible result of the military education system, there needs to be a serious overhaul.
So we're left with a parallel between Hutton and Cruise. Hutton was rewarded because of his diligence and reserve, whereas Cruise, who led the red berets, was too rigid to be able to fully succeed. There is an acknowledgment then, from the beginning, of Cruise's character's limitations and troubles. But there is still a place for such a boy in the military. It's only in the end that a boy like this can't be trusted or must be killed. That's a strange message to end a film with.
The film ends with two deaths, both the result of a young man taking charge of a situation and entrusting other young men with responsibility. Essentially Hutton's character does a great job. Things go wrong because accidents happen, the first death was a result of escalated terms of the stand off. The last deaths happen because young people are ... what? Erratic? Untrustworthy? Thrill-seekers? Or is it that life hasn't weeded out the psychos yet? That young people can't have learned that death is terrible and murder a terrible choice? I don't think so. I think maybe I'm being rough on this film because by now there have been films like
Bully which explore the hostile, psychos that teenagers can be, so I expect a bit more character development.
But Sean Penn used to be really cute. Too bad he grew up into a bit of a bastard. Who cheats on the Princess Bride? For crying out loud! And why would such a talented woman put herself through that? We really need to stop encouraging such terrible behavior in men. Ugh.
