As more and more of our soldiers come home from Iraq with life-altering head wounds, this is a commentary on what exists for them. Dillon plays the dull-witted Marine who is suffering from concussions and battle fatigue, now called PTSD. He wanders around the nightclubs AWOL, which makes the fact that he is termed 'shell-shocked' make plausible why he would be out in the public like that.
A married nightclub singer, doing a great impression of the Andrews Sisters with her fellow chorines, takes him under her wing. This costs her, as the nosy landlady is continually messing in her business and finally really screws both of them.
There is a lot of "Orpheus Descending", that famous French film, in this movie....as the MPs cycle in and out of the movie, always on the pursuit. Exactly what you ominously see throughout that film: definitely setting a mood.
Matt Dillon does his usual excellent job, as he portrays the 'out-of-it' Marine, desperately needing love and solace...but still savvy enough to use his looks to lure the lady in, still the aggressive male. You wonder how he has enough self-protective instinct to keep driving, as she repels his advances, but he does. (Else you wouldn't have a movie).
This one is not as nuanced as his more recent films, where he has grown as an actor (see "Crash" for an example of how a good actor portrays the bad and good in a person). However, it shows a lot about the atmosphere of that time, when AWOL was one thing, but desertion was a hanging offense. You'll pick up a lot of little-known facts about wartime life in this one.
A married nightclub singer, doing a great impression of the Andrews Sisters with her fellow chorines, takes him under her wing. This costs her, as the nosy landlady is continually messing in her business and finally really screws both of them.
There is a lot of "Orpheus Descending", that famous French film, in this movie....as the MPs cycle in and out of the movie, always on the pursuit. Exactly what you ominously see throughout that film: definitely setting a mood.
Matt Dillon does his usual excellent job, as he portrays the 'out-of-it' Marine, desperately needing love and solace...but still savvy enough to use his looks to lure the lady in, still the aggressive male. You wonder how he has enough self-protective instinct to keep driving, as she repels his advances, but he does. (Else you wouldn't have a movie).
This one is not as nuanced as his more recent films, where he has grown as an actor (see "Crash" for an example of how a good actor portrays the bad and good in a person). However, it shows a lot about the atmosphere of that time, when AWOL was one thing, but desertion was a hanging offense. You'll pick up a lot of little-known facts about wartime life in this one.