The Coast Guard

THE COAST GUARD is a Korean picture by Kim Ki Duk, the guy who made 3-IRON. Since I love 3-IRON, I was all set to love this picture, as well. Unfortunately, it didn't work out that way.

South Korea is one of the few countries on Earth that actively patrols its beaches. Since the Korean War cease-fire, North Korea has consistently sent spies and saboteurs south to either do a quick hit-and-run or blend into society and await the call to action. There have been no confirmed infiltrations since 2000, but South Korean soldiers on coast guard duty continue to patrol, and they continue to have authorization to shoot anyone who they see on the beach at night. THE COAST GUARD is about one such soldier, a particularly gung-ho career man who shoots (and grenades) a man he thinks is an infiltrator, but who is actually just a drunk kid having sex on the beach. The soldier comes unglued, the kid's paramour goes insane, and things go downhill from there.

It's a good movie; a perfectly fine movie; but I've seen post-traumatic stress disorder movies before and I've seen military unit falling apart movies before. THE COAST GUARD doesn't add anything new to those concepts, and the print on the DVD is muddy and old. THE COAST GUARD doesn't give one much food for thought and it doesn't dazzle the eye, so we're left with a particularly good Movie of the Week.

As I said, it's a fine movie. But it's no 3-IRON.

The Son's Room

Sometimes, all a guy wants to do is watch an American picture where lots of stuff blows up real good.

That's the mood I was in when I reluctantly fired up THE SON'S ROOM (2001), Nanni Moretti's film about a family and the pain it endures when one of its members drowns in a scuba mishap. It wasn't long, however, before thoughts of explosions left my mind as I became deeply involved with this family, their grief, and their attempts to cope with it.

THE SON'S ROOM succeeds, in part, because it doesn't rush to tragedy. It gives us a good half hour to get to know these people; to develop an attachment to Andrea, the doomed teenager; and to develop a genuine affinity for Giovanni, the father and psychoanalyst who begins to suspect that his professional gods are as false as the Catholic one he left behind long ago. When Andrea dies offscreen, we empathize with his surviving family members, and we're ready to travel with them on the next phase of their journey.

What do I like most about this movie? It doesn't feature "Solsbury Hill," for one thing. For another, it offers no overblown dramatic scenes in which the characters shout their feelings at one another. For yet another, it offers no trite conclusion, or even an obvious message. A page is turned, and that's all, and that seems appropriate.

I was in the mood for an action picture, but I got something better: an involving picture. I care about these people, and I want to know what happens next in their lives. Perhaps they'll write.

Rocky

So you say you want to be entertained? Well, ROCKY wants to entertain you. This 1981 Bollywood production has romance, deception, loss, redemption, motorcycle stunts, fistfights, heroes, villains, motherly love, and even a disco dance-off that you will never forget. The problem is that it isn't very good.

Here's the movie in a nutshell. Rocky's dad is a union organizer who's killed by the Indian Snidely Whiplash, who proceeds to sexually assault his mother while the boy, 6ish, tries to stop him. A family friend arrives just in time to save the day, but the boy is so traumatized that he's now an amnesiac. The local doctor believes that the boy should be separated from his mother, and the family friend steps in to adopt him. Fast forward 15-or-so years, and young Rocky's all grown up, still in the dark about his early childhood. He doesn't know it yet, but he has a karmic score to settle: over the next couple of hours, he must avenge his father, get the girl, and sing and dance his way into our hearts.

There's a problem, however. ROCKY's titular character is played by Sanjay Dutt, an actor so lacking in presence, range, and athletic ability that I couldn't decide which was more unbelievable: his acting, his dancing, or his stunt work. The supporting cast is fine, but it can't save a production that hinges on our acceptance of the entirely unremarkable Dutt as a charismatic leader, fearsome fighter, and dance machine.

As for the production, well, it's late-disco-era Bollywood, so stand by for some amusing sets and costumes. The transfer doesn't help, as the DVD producers seemed to work from the most scratched, discolorized, and generally battered print they could find. I guess it's better than nothing, if you're a Sanjay Dutt completist.

As I said, ROCKY wants to entertain you. Though it pulls out all the stops, sadly, it fails.