Set in 2004, the Billy Lynn (Alwyn, his debut) of the title is part of
the Bravo Company, a platoon who have been sent back momentarily from
their tour in the Iraq War when their heroic deeds are caught on
camera, with Billy Lynn in particular showing himself instinctually to
be playing hero in trying to save his sergeant (Diesel,
The Last Witch Hunter)
from certain capture by the enemy. Their current mission is to boost
morale by being part of the game conversation and the halftime show
for the Thanksgiving Day game involving 'America's Team', Dallas (this
film does not have NFL licensing, perhaps due to subject matter, so no
"Cowboys" are mentioned) by appearing on stage during the concert by
Destiny's Child (especially during their hit song, "Soldier").
However, PTSD from the experience has seeped into the minds of those
who have experienced the terror of war, testing the resolve of the men
to keep it together in the surreal experience of being on the
battleground days before, losing their beloved leader in a nightmare
confrontation, then in the glitz and glamour of a big showcase among
people who seem on another planet altogether from what they're
experiencing, especially as their story is being courted by a big-shot
Hollywood mover and shaker (Tucker,
Silver Linings Playbook) trying to secure funding
from Dallas' team owner (Martin, Love
the Coopers) for a potential movie.
Ang Lee (Brokeback
Mountain, Hulk) is a great director,
to be sure (a two-time Oscar winner), but he may be the wrong one to
bring the distinctly American story within Billy Lynn's Long
Halftime Walk to the big screen and have it connect with the
audience who would find the subject matter most fascinating. Intended
to continue the use of 3D that brought Lee success with his acclaimed
Life of Pi, and using 4K 120fps
high frame rate technology to boot, the sheen of Billy Lynn
is decidedly small-screen in execution, looking and feeling like a
television drama with only big stars and some bad language to separate
it. I wouldn't generally criticize the format of a movie, but in this
case, the use of this new technology has altered the way that Ang Lee
has decided to direct his film, resulting in an increase in the
brightness, less emphasis on traditional cinematography, less make-up,
and, with the expense of the technology on a limited budget, less
takes per scene, and practically no ability reshoots once it was said
and done.
In addition, the actors were told to tone down their
performances to be less animated, because the film would be losing 80%
of the captured frames when seen in its traditional 24fps showings
(all but a handful of theaters around the world were equipped for the
full 4K 3D 120fps presentation), and 75% of the frames when shown on a
format for televisions. This results in the film feeling very "stagy"
in its execution, not dissimilar to Danny Boyle's
Steve Jobs if it were slavishly
adherent to a 3D presentation without many retakes.
Adapted
from the 2012 novel by Ben Fountain, which paints a much more intimate
portrayal of the psychology of the returning soldier, Ang Lee attempts
to give us the internal workings of the mind Billy Lynn as he
struggles to make sense through the use of 'trigger moments' that
contrast what he's seeing before him with his recent experience in the
harrowing war zone, showing how he's barely able to keep from
flinching as he sees sights that remind him of that world he's been
living day to day in for the last year. Lee makes a decided effort to
try to put us in the middle of the action (again, he wanted a 3D
experience too), as the actors often look and emote into the camera,
giving us the POV of the people they are speaking to in an effort for
us to connect on a personal level with these soldiers and what they're
going through.
What's really missing within Billy Lynn's
Long Halftime Walk is an emotional investment in the characters
and their plights. The film succeeds best when looking satirically
toward the soldier-gone-home experience, particularly in the way they
are treated by the media, entertainment, and also by average joes with
their own need to strut machismo in front of these warriors, as if
they are being challenged to confrontation by the mere presence of the
fighting elite in front of them. Lee is a master of emotional drama,
exploring the anguish of the human heart in ways few directors can
capture, but the character of Billy Lynn isn't one explored in the
screenplay with much depth. That's mostly because the story is built
on the written page to be a satire, but Lee doesn't seem to be either
cognizant or interested in the biting humor that is coming from the
story adapted from Ben Fountain's novel.
There are also
questionable casting issues that throws the drama off balance. Steve
Martin strains to be credible as the NFL tycoon looking to make a few
bucks off of exploiting the soldier's stories at a fraction of the
price. Chris Tucker has a nice broadly comedic personality, but makes
little impact on the film in a role that requires a deft hand at
satire to fully buy into. And Makenzie Leigh fails to ignite sparks in
a love story that has almost no time to get rooted in the limited
amount of minutes in which her character is meant to make a love
connection with Billy, who really only seems drawn to her looks as a
cheerleader.
Ultimately, I do find enough connective tissue
within Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk in order to recommend
for those interested in the subject matter, but this will likely be a
movie that most viewers will find too tonally erratic or narratively
turbulent to fully be on board with. It's especially disappointing for
those who expect Ang Lee to knock it out of the park every time out,
though one should also remember that Ang Lee struggled to make Hulk a
credible comic book superhero flick that mass audiences could connect
with. Still, there is a nice central performance from Joe Alwyn to
admire, as well as a few fine supporting turns, and some deeply
resonant thematic aspects that pop up from time to time, making this a
flawed but still interesting attempt to showcase the trials,
tribulations, and troubles for the American soldier coming back home
to an American society who aren't very tuned in on exactly what
they've been through on a daily basis over several tours of duty
overseas.
In the best of moments, Lee shows that going from the arena of battle
to the football arena can become a nightmarish experience on its own,
but in its worst, no matter how immersive the 3D experience, it falls
ironically flat.
Qwipster's rating:
©2016 Vince Leo
