MOVIE - Pearl Harbour (2001) - SPOILERS
Yesterday I watched a film called “Outbreak” first screened in 1995. Some strong performances by the actors in all of the leading roles which included Dustin Hoffman, Morgan Freeman, Donald Sutherland, Rene Russo and others. I particularly liked the character portrayed by Cuba Gooding who added a hint of comedy to a film that looked at the dark subject of a global pandemic.
The day before yesterday I watched a film called “Pearl Harbour (2001)” which film starred Ben Affleck (Rafe), Josh Hartnett (Danny), Kate Beckinsale (Evelyn) and .. this is pure coincidence! .. Cuba Gooding, a “bit” player … who added a hint of comedy to what became very much a blood and guts movie … and would that be this actor’s forte?
Pearl Harbour doesn’t stretch the imagination overly much and seems more like a PR exercise to promote American culture, than anything else.
The plot is plain and simple and much of the action consists of the Hawaiian island being sorely bombed by the Japanese airforce including a lot of explosions and much blood and gore. Not a lot for the writers to get their teeth into. Of the human interest parts of the film where actual dialogue is required the audience is reminded by the ‘period acting’ and quaint script that the attack on Pearl Harbour happened 70 years ago!
Essentially, two young American boys who are close friends both have the same dream when they grow up of becoming pilots which dream they realise just prior to America being ‘drafted’ into WWII by the attack of the Japanese on Pearl Harbour Harbor in 1941. Located in Pearl Harbour, Rafe is already dating a nurse, Evelyn, and it is a love match but the relationship is still platonic. Without telling either his best friend or “his girl”, Rafe has applied to join the war effort in Europe, in England to be more specific, but in a dog fight with the Germans over the sea his plane goes down and Rafe is believed to be dead. Lost in action. It is Danny’s ‘job’ to tell Evelyn that Rafe is dead and eventually Evelyn accepts Danny’s romantic overtures and they become lovers, she becomes pregnant and Rafe returns from the dead.
The two men slug it out for a bit but Rafe backs down and the friendship resumes. The three main characters survive the attack and are militarily decorated for their bravery, the two men assigned to a secret mission. At which point Rafe learns from Evelyn that she’s having Danny’s baby and Rafe agrees to keep the information a secret so that Danny can focus on the mission. After much heroism, Danny in fact is killed while Rafe returns to Pearl Harbour, marries “his girl” and they bring up Danny junior together.
So it’s a film about boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy and girl get back together again and, surprisingly, with much of the passion in the film actually being reserved for the backdrop of war and not the romance.