Reviews

I just learned about this movie a few days ago (available for free on the Roku channel) and my initial thought was "a western with Tommy Lee Jones? Yes please, and in my usual manner I decided to look into it to try and discover why I hadn't heard of this movie until nearly a decade after it was released.

It didn't take long as terminology like "feminist western" were occasionally sprinkled about by multiple reviewers. I nearly decided not to watch it.based on the things I read online about the movie. As one reviewer here at imdb said, it's not for everyone and if we're going to allow social commentary to be addressed by reviewers, I'll include mine.

While I wouldn't call it blatantly "anti Christian" or a movie glorifying feminism, I will say that I certainly wouldn't blame people who criticize it for those reasons because it cuts pretty close to the bone into deserving that criticism. The vast majority of the Christians in the story walk a fine line between hypocritical and godly in their beliefs, the only man in the movie that is portrayed as a good guy is Jones and it could be argued convincingly that he was forced into the "do the right thing" against his will.

But I typically enjoy movies where morality is a gray area and there's a thin line dividing good and evil and this movie certainly didn't disappoint. Some aspects of the movie that I appreciated regarding the portrayal of specific genders that I tend to agree with is that women, by nature, tend to force communities to become more civilized when they occupy it.the scene where Hilary Swank chastises Jones for desecrating an Indian burial site because "for the last two nights i was cold when i was sleeping, and that indian is wrapped in a pelt. I can use it to keep warm but that indian no longer needs it" then later when they come up on the grave of a little girl that has been dug up and Swank chooses to re bury the child Jones decides to continue on without her when she chooses to do the Christian duty of returning the child to the ground I believes shows the intrinsic difference between men and women, men by nature are more logical and practical while women are more civilized, expecting those that they are involved with to have higher expectations.

Early on in the movie we see the three women they are taking to Iowa descend into madness and I can appreciate the way the movie depicted the harshness of life on the prairie taxing them mentally and emotionally, and it's difficult not to feel compassion for them despite some of the bad things the did during their mental health crisis.

Another thing that I can appreciate the movie depicting and disagree with the professional critics, is the claim that social pressure on women to get married, especially for Swanks character. That might have held more merit in 2014 when the movie was produced, but in the post #metoo movement when we see 40 something women on twitter and tictoc proclaiming "where are all the good men at?!?" And men responding online by telling the women that you're too bossy and well past your prime now, shows that in some ways this move is more socially relevant than it probably intended to be, especially regarding the growing number of the do called red pill mens movement.

Truth is that I enjoyed the movie more than I expected, if you enjoy Tommy Lee Jones or Hilary Swank movies, either one, you'll enjoy this movie. You might suffer through some cringe moments, but do try and preserver through them, they are worthwhile. If you enjoy movies where things ain't quite as black and white as they tend to be in movies, especially Westerns, give this a try, I suspect you'll enjoy it.

I read the book this was based off of over a decade ago (2010) and the book caused me to expand my interest in history to include WWI history as well which causes to understand how each war we are involved with is often an nothing more than an extension of the previous war. Once you begin to understand that concept it becomes easy to understand how the Afghanistan war is little more then unresolved issues stemming from the first Iraqi war.

The movie is fairly accurate to the actions depicted in the book. The battleship wasn't sunk right away as depicted in the movie, the Navy did get a team onboard the battleship and examine the damage caused by Mitchell's airplanes but as depicted in the movie he did manage to drive home that ships were indeed venerable from the air.

Between the sinking of the battleship and his court-martial, general Mitchell took a tour of Japan, a nation that had been our allies during WWI and tension had been growing between our two countries between the wars. After he toured the country he saw the increasing military buildup of a Japanese air power and the potential threat their military presented and wrote up an evaluation of the country presented to the United States as a whole. His assessment was brought up during the trial and it seems disturbingly prophetic watching a movie taking place more than two decades prior to our entry into WWII and filmed a little more than a decade after the conclusion of WWII, and the filmmakers took full advantage of that situation in how they presented it to the viewers.