The Last Samurai (2003)
It was a good death.
THE SUMMARY: A war-weary soldier traumatized from killing so many Indians is hired to kill the Japanese Indian equivalent, but joins their side instead in what is basically oriental Dances with Wolves. Some broad philosophical points I appreciate, but overall, lacking depth and just too long, especially in the back half, to earn my higher marks.
FROM MOVIE-PICKER SWIFTER: Tom Cruise spent almost two years in preparation for this movie, including swordplay instruction and Japanese language lessons. He narrowly escaped potentially fatal injuries after a sword was swung within one inch of his neck while filming. He and his co-star Hiroyuki Sanada were acting out a sword fight scene when the incident happened. Sanada swung a sword at Cruise who was on an off-camera mechanical horse at the time, but the machine reportedly malfunctioned and failed to duck at the right moment. Sanada stopped the blade just one inch from his neck.
Note from Matt: Fact check true, apparently. The Japanese actor nearly became the Alec Baldwin of the samurai world.
THE BEST:
Discipline over technology: There are very broad themes I appreciate about this movie - primarily, the idea that discipline and skill with the basics is superior to reliance on technology alone. The gun is the great equalizer in conflict and combat, but even armed, those who lack proficiency can be defeated. ‘Make yourself hard to kill,’ the saying goes, but that’s about much more than just having a weapon. It’s about a mindset. It’s about training. It’s about preparedness. It’s about testing yourself routinely. It’s about a philosophy aligned with the samurai, at least as presented in this movie.
Technology outpaces its utility and becomes destructive: An extension of that theme is that if we forget the basics, thinking technology has freed us from those responsibilities, we will learn our lesson the hard way. Don’t get me wrong - technology is cool. I love everything about the internet. It’s only through technology that this movie review even has any value at all (though many will argue it has none). But the more we outsource basic tasks to robots, the less capable of those basic tasks we become. The weaker and more pathetic we become. The easier to kill we become.
I’m no samurai philosopher, and of course I have no idea if this movie is even accurate in that regard, but as presented, this idea is an important theme in the movie. Technology, like anything else, comes with both benefits and costs. Benefits to enjoy, but costs to be minimized. So by all means, use the cool new gadgets that make your life easier and better. But understand once you’ve dulled nature’s efforts at sharpening you, you must make a conscious effort to sharpen yourself.
The action is good, though occasionally ridiculous: As movie-picker Swiftner mentions, I certainly respect the physical training efforts to make this movie, and the battle scenes are tense and mostly believable. I understand movies will always have somewhat outrageous feats. That is what makes them entertaining, after all - but the only action scene that was downright silly to me was the ambush on Algren. Four-on-one, all attackers with swords, and Algren unarmed. I don’t care how much samurai study he did over the winter. That ain’t happening. I assume these assassins were selected for a reason, primarily their assassination ability. I guess the assassin training program doesn’t include teamwork. Quick, everyone - attack him, one at a time, in sequence!
The final battle… before the other final battle
Have you guys tried stabbing him all at the same time?
THE WORST:
No really - please kill yourself: The first half of the movie had me more intrigued than the back half. By the end, I wanted Katsumoto’s suicide even more than he did. Hurry up and evacuate those intestines! I’ve watched fifty different episodes of ‘you guys should be dead’ now. Just get to the finale. I don’t need a prelude and an encore to the final battle. A few stabs, a few gunshots - I get it. They all died for a higher honor, or something.
The Little Bighorn timeline doesn’t add up: Yes, it’s a snobby pedantic point, but I demand integrity in my presentation of American history and especially Montana history. If not outright stated, it is heavily implied that Algren is a veteran of the Battle of the Little Bighorn. On stage, Algren is introduced as a veteran of the Army’s Seventh Cavalry Regiment. Colonel Bagley was Algren’s former commanding officer in the Seventh Cavalry. The Seventh Cavalry was under the command of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, famous for his ‘last stand’ on the Little Bighorn battlefield, and of course, when speaking with Katsumoto after capture, Algren says he was formerly under Custer’s command.
The problem here is that no American solider under Custer’s command survived the Battle of the Little Bighorn, though many in the years after would falsely claim to. Accepting this implied plotline is to rewrite history in a significant way, making an American soldier experience from the battlefield preserved in a way it was not.
But fine, let’s say for the sake of making entertaining fiction, Nathan Algren was indeed an authentic ‘lone survivor,’ unlike the liars, and I should accept a little historical bending for a good story. The other major problem is the timeline doesn’t align. The Battle of the Little Bighorn was June 25, 1876. According to this movie’s timeline, Algren was already at sea sailing to Japan on July 12, 1876. So he somehow survived a bloodbath battle, was then discharged from the Army, drank his way to San Francisco, and shipped off to Japan, all in a week or two’s time?
Or perhaps I’m completely mistaken, and Algren only served under Custer prior to the Little Bighorn, in different battles of the Indian Wars. Maybe, but in that case, how does Algren tell the San Francisco audience what happened on the battlefield? How would he know? News of the massacre didn’t hit Montana newspapers until July 3. The New York Times didn’t report about the battle at Little Bighorn until July 6. The early news coverage was light on details, not specific in the tactical errors that led to the defeat.
In either scenario, Algren having knowledge of the battle on the timeline presented simply makes no sense. Either he was there but left the Army on an impossibly quick timeline, or he read about the event in the newspapers like everybody else, but would not have had the specific knowledge he did.
I love my new dad who killed my old dad: I know - all I do is complain about movie length and romances. But this romance especially sucks. Oh wow, you killed my husband and my son’s dad? It’s cool - you seem like a nice guy who probably did it for understandable reasons. Let’s build some sexual tension on this premise.
It’s preposterous in concept, but it’s preposterous in its own execution too, no pun intended. Like many people in this movie, Taka begs for permission to commit suicide because the presence of her husband’s killer is unbearable, until it suddenly becomes super hot for some reason. Why?
It’s a ridiculous case of Stockholm Syndrome, but maybe I’m the crazy one. There’s a theory that women naturally submit to conquerors as a survival strategy, but even if so, that doesn’t explain why Higen, Taka’s son, goes along with it and doesn’t avenge his father either. Women may submit to conquerors, but men, even young men, avenge - especially if they are samurai warriors in training. Get him, kid! He’s not your real dad!
Either way, just please - spare me the the bizarre dress up ‘sex’ scene. I get it - it’s supposed to be artsy by inverting the concept of undressing, instead making putting on clothes some sort of tease. It’s not. Like every Tom Cruise sex scene, it’s awkward, unnatural, and makes no sense. She should dagger him to honor her husband, not bait him to dagger her too.
Plus the ending was nonsensical also. Nobody really knows what happened to Algren - oh wait, here’s a scene of him ‘finding peace’ by becoming a weird step dad with the widow he created.
Terrible, empty ‘philosophical’ writing: I do find value in the broad philosophical themes of discipline and self-reliance over lazy tech-dependence. However, some of the supposedly ‘deep’ writing in this movie is comically shallow, often outright meaningless. In battle planning, Katsumoto asks Algren, ‘do you believe a man can change his destiny?’ Algren responds, ‘I think a man does what he can, until his destiny is revealed.’ Katsumoto looks like his mind has been blown with wisdom, but really this quote says nothing at all. Here’s a fair rewriting: ‘Do you believe destiny is under our control, thus making it not destiny, by definition? I believe a man has some influence, until that influence is relinquished because it wasn’t influence at all - the outcome was predetermined.’ If you read that and think it makes no sense, it doesn’t. Don’t blame me - blame the terrible writers.
Another example of cringe meaningless writing comes at the end. The emperor asks Algren how Katsumoto died. Algren responds ‘I will tell you how he lived!’ Cool, bro - but that’s not actually what he’s asking. We all know how he lived - he did samurai stuff. But when he died, did he get shot, or stabbed, or what?
Hurry up
Putting on clothes has never been hotter
Nobody really knows what happened to him - okay, here’s what happened to him
THE RATING: 3/5 Wickies. Come for the swordfights. Leave for everything else. Perfectly watchable, but no need to re-watch. And yes, I don’t care who becomes the new CEO at YouTube - the Five Wicky™ rating system is here to stay.
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NEXT WEEK: Enemy of the State (1998)
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