The Last Samurai is masterful blend of swordplay, historical epic and moral message.
By STEVE PERSALL
Published December 4, 2003
[Photo: Warner Bros.]
Tom Cruise, right, gives an expressive performance as Capt. Nathan Algren, who is hired by Japan’s emperor to train his army in modern warfare. Ken Watanabe plays the samurai Katsumoto.
Perhaps it's the Japanese code of honor and respect that prevents The Last Samurai from falling into the typical trap for stranger-in-a-strange-land movies. The stranger (always white) is usually moved by what he (always male) sees, learns something about himself from the culture, then proceeds to demonstrate that his initial superiority is enhanced to the point of near-sainthood.
Think Cry Freedom, Dances with Wolves or, more recently, the Tommy Lee Jones character in The Missing. It's a condescending Hollywood touch that director/co-writer Edward Zwick seems determined to avoid, despite having Tom Cruise as his star. The Last Samurai is a much smarter adventure for Zwick's efforts.
Cruise plays Capt. Nathan Algren, a decorated Army veteran of genocidal campaigns against American Indians, who doesn't feel good about his actions. When the film begins, he's a pathetic figure, a drunken shill for Winchester rifles on the medicine-show circuit, haunted by the screams of women and children slaughtered on the orders of Col. Bagley (Tony Goldwyn). The two soldiers are reunited by an unusual business proposition.
The U.S. government wants to make weapons deals with Japan, which in 1876 straddles the line between medieval and modern. The emperor, not much more than a boy, is being steered toward the latter by greedy advisers. Meanwhile, the last vestiges of Japan's past - the samurai culture - wage war against the inevitable, led by charismatic Katsumoto (Ken Watanabe).
Algren and Bagley are hired by the emperor to train his army in modern warfare, including firearms to outmuscle the samurais' swords and arrows. The troops are slow learners, the politicians are impatient and Algren leads his troops into a battle they lose handily. Algren is captured, and Katsumoto keeps him alive, hoping to learn more about his enemy. The two eventually achieve mutual respect.
The word "mutual" is key. The Last Samurai never pretends for a minute that Algren is superior to the samurai. He teaches, yet he learns more, and so does the audience. Like Master and Commander, Zwick's film couches subtle morals about changing times and dubious heroism in the context of a rousing action movie. Both films, with their exemplary attention to period detail and personalities, are model historical epics.
Of the two, The Last Samurai is more beautiful, with cinematographer John Toll - an Oscar winner for Braveheart and Zwick's Legends of the Fall - displaying his gift for both scope and intimacy. The mostly Japanese locales don't require many technical cosmetics. Even those occasional embellishments, such as an eerie fog or filtered sunlight, are masterfully composed. Ngila Dickson's costume designs look even more authentic against backdrops that seem not to have changed in centuries.
The only occasional anachronism is Cruise, who at times simply looks too contemporary. His hair always seems styled for a fashion shoot, cut to blow, tumble and drip in precise sexiness. When Algren lectures a curious Brit (Timothy Spall) on Indian methods of scalping, one wonders how the captain's hair made it through. It's a minor quibble perhaps but, surrounded by so much veracity, it sticks out.
Otherwise, Cruise is once again solid, an actor whose eyes can affect an appropriate glaze, glint or reflection of wonder when necessary. Algren seems genuinely curious, when Cruise could play him as knowing all the answers. His courage is never debatable, yet there are flaws and doubts that Cruise conveys with expressions when the screenplay doesn't provide the words. Not exactly the Oscar-caliber work Cruise's publicists are touting, but good work.
If there's an award contender in the cast it's Watanabe, whose bravura reminded me of Toshiro Mifune, the samurai genre's archetype after starring in Akira Kurosawa's greatest films. Watanabe has a similarly severe face, full of anger and determination that Zwick frames the same way Kurosawa did Mifune. But Watanabe also possesses a sense of grace demanded by today's audiences, which is why Mifune's flintiness might seem dated. Katsumoto is the most compelling character in The Last Samurai, and Watanabe's first English-speaking performance is impressive.
Zwick's ability to stage historically accurate battle sequences is unsurpassed among contemporary filmmakers, after Glory, Legends of the Fall, Courage Under Fire and now this film. But the bloodshed, and The Last Samurai is grisly at times, never drowns out the emotions, the post-Vietnam consciousness of the screenplay and a Japanese culture where pureness of spirit is paramount. It's a fine piece of work, a bit too polished at times, yet always entertaining.
The Last Samurai
Grade: A
Director: Edward Zwick
Cast: Tom Cruise, Ken Watanabe, Tony Goldwyn, Timothy Spall, Billy Connolly, Masato Harada, Koyuki
Screenplay: John Logan, Marshall Herskovitz, Edward Zwick
