It is not clear exactly who is supposed to be The Last Samurai -- and perhaps it doesn't really matter.
The choices are the two male leads, who are studies in cultural contrast. One is Hollywood superstar Tom Cruise, who turns in a flashy, entertaining and multi-dimensional performance. The other is Japanese actor Ken Watanabe, who is both refined and mesmerizing in his heroic stillness.
The complex socio-political story, co-written by John Logan, Marshall Herskovitz and director Edward Zwick, is an historical fiction set primarily in Japan in 1875-1876.
Cruise plays a former U.S. Civil War hero now shrivelled to an alcoholic shell because of shocking experiences in the U.S.-Indian Wars. We meet him shilling for Winchester rifles at sideshows. Quickly, his former army buddy (Billy Connolly in a straightman role) shows up with a job offer.
The assignment? Train troops for the new young Emperor of Japan, who is trying to westernize his nation. He needs an army to crush a Samurai rebellion. In equal measure, Cruise's Cpt. Nathan Algren has a death wish and a yen for adventure, so he takes the mercenary job.
In Japan, the rebellion is led by the Samurai idealist played so beautifully by Watanabe. Eventually, the two men will cross paths and mutually determine their entwined fates in the classic "stranger in a strange land" storyline.
Other effective players are Timothy Spall (an English photographer), Tony Goldwyn (Algren's morally compromised former commander), Hiroyuki Sanada (a fierce and noble Samurai) and Koyuki (part of an unusual romantic plot).
The Last Samurai does not do what many Hollywood films do, to their lasting shame. It does not intrude an American stud into a foreign milieu to show ignorant locals how to get things done. Quite the opposite. Here, it is the ignorant American who learns true heroism -- and a sense of humanity and humility -- from the enlightened Samurai.
Also terrific is the painstaking attention to detail in sets and dress. Everything looks authentic and is performed for a sense of realism, so the fanciful story seems plausible.
The battle scenes are absolutely thrilling, yet also stomach-churning when characters you admire die. The Bushido, the code of conduct for a Samurai warrior, exacts a terrible toll.
The film does not idealize war. Instead, it examines the ideals, if any, behind them. In a critical example, we see flashbacks to the U.S.-Indian Wars. These battles are depicted as racial genocide, not uplifting episodes in U.S. history. For a Hollywood epic, that is a gutsy bit of revisionism.
As a film, however, The Last Samurai has significant problems. Zwick (Glory, Legends Of The Fall) has real style and panache. He can tame the beast in huge-scale scenes, but he rarely knows when to back off and scale down, especially in intimate moments that pump the heart and stir the soul.
In the most glaring example, the film has three distinct endings: One is elegiac and beautiful; the second is thuddingly obvious and awkward; the final one is pure hokum. If he had stopped this enterprise where he should have -- with ending one -- The Last Samurai would have grown in stature, becoming a great film, not just a good film.
(This film is rated 14A)
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