Studio's flag waving wilts quickly

By STEVE PERSALL, Times film critic

© St. Petersburg Times,
published October 12, 2001

Rather than redo promotional CDs for The Last Castle that were produced before the terrorist attacks, DreamWorks chose to send them out with an image many Americans would find offensive.

For the record, DreamWorks' The Last Castle is the first new movie since Sept. 11 to proudly wrap itself in the American flag. It isn't a comfortable fit.

The Last Castle, an action yarn about a military prison revolt starring Robert Redford, opens nationwide Oct. 19, two weeks after the original release date, changed in the wake of the attacks in Washington, New York and Pennsylvania.

Our nation's symbol was intended to be a key part of the film's advertising campaign, even before terrorists struck the United States. But the original plan was different, a remnant of the film industry's carelessness that few would have complained about before the World Trade Center and Pentagon bombings.

The Last Castle posters and cover art for CD-ROM press kits had been designed and printed by Sept. 11. Some theaters were already displaying the poster, featuring an image that previously seemed harmless by Hollywood hype standards: an American flag flown over a smoky battleground, hoisted upside down in a universally recognized sign of distress.

The only banner that could be more offensive to Americans at this time would be a white flag of surrender.

A theater owner in Georgia apparently noticed it first, removing the poster from his lobbies on Sept. 11. DreamWorks took the hint and recalled the promotional campaign nationwide. New poster art was designed, highlighting Redford and co-star James Gandolfini. TV ads focused on snappy salutes, Jerry Goldsmith's stirring music and U.S. flags treated much more reverently.

Very patriotic. Very now. However, it's doubtful that the as-yet-unpreviewed movie has made as much of an about-face as its advertising campaign. Whatever drama prompted the original pessimistic ads is probably still there -- perhaps the last traces of Hollywood's catering to antimilitary sentiments that started with M*A*S*H and Catch-22 and continued through The Siege and Three Kings. John Wayne -- at least the hawkish movie hero we knew -- died in Vietnam.

Now it's fashionable to stop worrying and learn to love to bomb. Military leaders aren't presently viewed as madmen, or soldiers as self-absorbed rebels. The Last Castle's plot centers on both types, with Gandolfini playing a tyrannical Army warden and Redford as a mutinous prisoner-general. Corrupted power, reasonable treason. Not exactly the image we're seeing on CNN.

DreamWorks paints a much different picture in the new ads, drenched in red, white and blue. Let the buyer beware if he or she is looking for a patriotic boost.

I was ready to give DreamWorks a break on this matter. The response to the original poster art was prompt. Delaying the release date was smart business, since wall-to-wall television news coverage blocked promoting the film. The suddenly patriotic slant of the advertising campaign isn't different from any other sales pitch convincing us that buying is a national duty.

Then the press kit for The Last Castle arrived in the mail, including a CD-ROM of promotional photographs. On the CD-ROM cover, and imprinted on the disc, is the original art for The Last Castle, with a distressed U.S. flag flying over smoldering buildings. An accompanying letter apologized that the CD-ROM had been created before Sept. 11.

That isn't good enough. Those discs, sent just last week to hundreds of media outlets, could have easily been adapted to the new ad campaign. Representatives of two local recording studios told me that 500 such CD-ROMS could be replaced for under $2,000 in much less time than The Last Castle was postponed. They also noted that DreamWorks probably has in-house capabilities or a standing deal with a recording studio to make the process cheaper and faster.

Cutting corners is expected during these economic times, but not at the expense of perpetuating a mistake. Especially when so much money was spent retooling a promotional campaign to make The Last Castle seem more patriotic than anyone planned it to be. DreamWorks may justify its decision by insisting that the CD-ROM was for the eyes of journalists only, but our eyes also watched the towers fall.

© St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.