Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk (2016)

Review

113min

Genre:       Drama, War

Director:    Ang Lee

Cast:         Joe Alwyn, Garrett Hedlund, Kristen Stewart…and more

Writers:     Ben Fountain and Jean-Christophe Castelli

-Synopsis-

Paraded as a hero for his actions while serving in the Iraq war, a young US soldier is caught between a duty to his unit and the pull of civilian life, while struggling to come to terms with the huge chasm between the American public’s perceptions of war and its sombre reality in this Ang Lee (Life of Pi, Brokeback Mountain) adaptation of the award-winning Ben Fountain novel.

In a hugely successful career spanning 25 years and encompassing multiple genres, Taiwanese director Ang Lee has displayed a mastery of lifting the veil off a myriad of different characters and revealing the common humanity beneath, in everything from period costume dramas and candid character melodramas, to comic-book epics and CGI adventure blockbusters. Now in his first contemporary War movie he applies those skills to the modern American warrior, in a character drama and critique of the society which both creates and reveres them, but most importantly an ode to the American soldier… in all his glory.

In an impressive acting debut, young Englishman  Joe Alwyn stars as 19-year-old Texan and ‘Bravo Squad’ private ‘Billy Lynn’, in a story which takes place over a day leading up to an American Football halftime show for a big Texas team, where his heroic exploits and his unit will be paraded as the centrepiece of a flashy extravaganza. But as the day’s events trigger flashbacks to his harrowing experiences in Iraq, ‘Billy’ starts to question the society which brands him a hero and becomes torn between his duty to his brothers-in-arms and their blunt unit leader (Garrett Hedlund), versus his loyalty to his sister (Kristen Stewart) and a desire for civilian life.

‘Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk’ is a rather unique film and no doubt an ambitious undertaking; not only does it try to be a gritty and sobering war drama with an element of the coming-of-age story, but also a critique of modern American society and their propensity for subconscious hero-worship of the military, without a real understanding of the costs they pay, combined with a satire about the commercialisation of war and the corporatisation of America. Most importantly though this is character drama about the deep brotherly bonds formed during war, nobly attempting to illuminate the struggles that US soldiers face in modern conflict and the scars they bring home, if they’re lucky enough to make it back, both the superficial and deep psychological ones in the form of PTSD.

But Lee and the producers are biting off way more than they can chew here, and the result is rather disappointing in all of its many facets. The combat scenes are few and far between and pretty run-of-the-mill when compared to contemporary films like ‘The Hurt Locker’ and ‘American Sniper’, undermining the film’s credentials as a gritty war drama and leaving a sense that they were treated as an afterthought. It doesn’t fare much better as a piece of satire with the targets and execution proving too on-the-nose and convenient, while the character drama is let down by poor dialogue which sometimes takes the film dangerously close to expensive soap opera or lifetime TV movie territory, all of which isn’t helped by the stop-start pace and constant flashbacks which disrupt the flow of the film.

No doubt the film is visually impressive, particularly with its big showpiece culmination, and Sony have marketed this as “An Evolutionary Leap in Cinema” thanks to it being shot in 120fps extreme hi-def 4k resolution. But frankly it’s a bit of a waste of a marketing campaign, and a technique which would have been far more effective in a more cinematic film, which might actually merit and make good use of the technology.

Armed with solid source material and plenty of good intentions, ‘Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk’ ultimately manages to be perhaps Ang Lee’s biggest directorial misfire to date. Thanks in no small part to novice screenwriter Jean-Christophe Castell’s adaptation of the novel, which snuffs out the sharp satirical tone of Ben Fountain’s work and leaves a tame piece of social commentary which is drowned out by the poorly conceived and disappointingly executed character melodrama, leaving the actors very little to work with despite the efforts of Joe Alwyn and Garrett Hedlund, who provide most of the sense of reality in the film.

Without the effectiveness of the satire to balance out the narrative, not to mention the completely one-sided perspective which makes no effort to illuminate how the ‘other side’ is affected by war, ‘Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk’ comes off more like morale-boosting propaganda than a genuine attempt to look at the complexities of modern warfare and the effects on those who wage it. Nevertheless we applaud the tackling of the issues in the film and its ambition… if not its execution, but despite how divisive it has proven we would much sooner recommend Clint Eastwood’s ‘American Sniper’ as a drama which effectively peers beneath the uniform.

The Bottom Line…

Despite the talents of its acclaimed director and a noble effort to string together fascinating and profound social themes, regarding contemporary American society and the essence of a 21st century soldier, ‘Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk’ stumbles from first to last hurdle. No amount of ultra hi-def bells & whistles can gloss over the sub-par dialogue and clumsily-executed narrative, ultimately amounting to an ambitious but underwhelming adaptation of a much more interesting piece of character drama and social satire.

Similar films you may like (Home Video)

American Sniper (2014)

Clint Eastwood directs and Bradley Cooper stars in a dramatisation of Seal Chief Chris Kyle’s autobiography, considered the US Army’s most lethal marksman ever with over 150 confirmed kills in the US war in Iraq, as he struggles to balance his responsibility to a family at home with his duty to the men he won’t abandon.

Directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Bradley Cooper, Sienna Miller and Jake McDorman among others.

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