Review: A Midnight Clear

A WWII film centred on a platoon of supposed high IQ soldiers, primarily one played by Ethan Hawke (looking quite young, actually, though he’d been acting a long time by this point), who narrates the film. He and his dwindling number of comrades are somewhere in the snowy French countryside when they exhibit some very strange behaviour from the enemy. It appears a small band of German soldiers are trying to communicate with them through peaceful means. They even sing Christmas carols. Hawke and his men are at a loss to what this all means. Interestingly enough, their token interpreter is the Jewish Shutzer (Ayre Gross), who finds out that this group of Germans is tired and are looking for a way out, suggesting a mock skirmish and surrender, so that they can be captured, but making it seem like they at least put up a fight. Are they for real? Gary Sinise plays ‘Mother’, a fastidious soldier who seems to be cracking up, Frank Whaley is the religious ‘Father’ (he’s a seminary dropout), whilst Kevin Dillon and a blonde Peter Berg make up the numbers. John C. McGinley and Larry Joshua are their higher-ups, the former not so much a Major as a major jerk, though he’s clearly under pressure from those even higher up than he.

I wouldn’t go as far as some and call this a WWII anti-war film, especially with pro-troops guys like Peter Berg and Gary Sinise in the cast (though Berg would later direct “Lone Survivor”, which wasn’t really a rah-rah war film, either). However, this 1992 adaptation of the William Wharton novel by writer-director Keith Gordon (star of “Christine”, director of “The Chocolate War” and ten episodes of “Dexter”) certainly isn’t your typical depiction of that war. Well-shot by Tom Richmond (“I’m Gonna Git You Sucka”, “House of 1,000 Corpses”), though the amount of close-ups do suggest a modest budget. There’s some really stunning imagery at times. I just wish the film overall was better. For too long it plays like a hodgepodge of war movie clichés, with even a little “Biloxi Blues” thrown in, not to mention co-starring two members of the cast of “Platoon” in Kevin Dillon and John C. McGinley. Ethan Hawke’s sensitive narrator is a mixture of Charlie Sheen in “Platoon” and Matthew Modine in “Full Metal Jacket”.

However, it gets more interesting and less clichéd as it goes along. Usually seen by Hollywood as a fairly clear-cut war of good guys vs. the Nazis, this one paints a more confusing and maddening picture of the war that is at least different from the norm. If it’s an anti-war film, it’s only in the sense that films that realistically depict war are anti-war.

Playing a callous and frequently angry officer, Shouty hard-arse John C. McGinley is perhaps the best kind of John C. McGinley. Frank Whaley is also a good choice for the sensitive, religious member of the troupe. Gary Sinise, in his big-screen debut is interesting casting looking back. Playing a guy who has been  psychologically scarred by a war that he finds confusingly complex, he’s quite sensitive in his portrayal. The best performance in the film actually comes from Arye Gross of all people, as the resident Jewish-American soldier. As ‘soldier most likely to get MDK’d by the Germans (and not just because he’s Jewish)’, it’s his career-best performance. Hawke is OK, Dillon (so impressive in “Platoon”) barely feels present, and peroxide hair does less than zero favours for Peter Berg, who doesn’t get much to do here. The music score by Mark Isham (“The Hitcher”, “Point Break”) isn’t going to be all tastes, as it’s very much a modern score for what is a period film. I get that, but I think it’s excellent and moody nonetheless. It works for me.

The second half is good and the film is well-shot, scored, and acted, but overall this is pretty uneven stuff.

Rating: C+