pulliamrl

Kevin Bacon stars as Marine Lieutenant Colonel Michael Strobl who works a desk job in Quantico VA. He is a "Desert Storm" veteran but he has not put in for duty in Afghanistan and Iraq. He's content returning home each day to his wife and children.

And yet...he feels a sense of missing his "moment" as a Marine. And it is this sense of needing to be a part of the Iraq/Afghanistan conflict that compels him to request an assignment that is becoming more and more frequent -- escort duty for a fallen Marine.

PFC Chance Phelps, only 19 years old, is the fallen Marine and Mike Strobl is assigned to get Phelps from the mortuary in Dover, Delaware, to Phelps' final resting place in Dubois, Wyoming.

While it is Phelps whose presence is always sensed, Bacon is the film's central figure -- stoic and a bit taken aback at what he encounters at every turn. The emotional guts of this film come from the supporting players: The woman who cleans Phelps' body, the Marines who prepare Phelps' uniform and ribbons before the man is placed in his casket, the people who move the Marine's remains from warehouse to aircraft to hearse and all the people that Strobl meets in the course of "taking Chance" back home. At every turn, Strobl is there watching over Chance Phelps...and so, too, are everyday Americans, doing their regular jobs, including this one task -- transporting the remains of a fallen Marine and trying to express, in the best way they can, their grief over this young man and their gratitude to the officer serving as escort. It is the many layers of reaction Bacon has to them that makes his portrayal really great...and greatly real.

Bacon is the "real deal" as a Marine throughout this film, IMO. It is what people say to him, how they say it and his genuinely "real" reactions to their words and actions that move the viewer. And, of course, it's Bacon who, bit by bit, begins to let us inside his head and feel what he is feeling. In effect, "taking Chance" to his final duty station is as cathartic for the viewer as it is for his escort.

The supporting cast is wonderful and filled with recognizable faces, such as Tom Wopat (as Phelps' father) and Gordon Clapp, et.al. Most of their names were unknown to me. I'll not forget their performances, though.

I cannot criticize negative reactions to this film, but there is a charm that Freddie Prinz possesses that no movie maker has yet capitalized upon. He COULD fill the shoes of Cary Grant IF someone with actual intelligence could write a script suitable for him.

My reason for posting this comment is that someone -- in going over the plot -- said the girl did not call the police when she allegedly witnessed Prinz's character murder someone (behind a curtain...so she only saw shadows).

She most pointedly and assuredly DID call the police. One of the key plot points for this section of the film is that the police DON'T TAKE HER SERIOUSLY.

I'd be able to take a condemnation of this film more seriously IF the reviewer gave some evidence of actually SEEING the film

Having actually seen the first installment, I can say I didn't miss the bloated 40 minutes of "American Idol" commercials mixed with 20 minutes of overwrought "you are safe, you are in the bottom 3" hyperbole in order to rid the field of wannabes of one more person.

Instead, I was mesmerized by the first one-hour installment of an intriguing story about people being brought together to consider a proliferation of unexplainable signs and events that might mark the end of the world.

Unless America is simply brain dead, this extremely well-produced limited series should rack up good numbers in the ratings.

Bill Pullman plays a Harvard professor who has recently seen the murderer of his teen-aged daughter captured and imprisoned. Not giving any credence to this man's claims that he can never be killed and will never bleed, he sees one of the man's fingers sliced off...and the non-bleeding hand is raised defiantly.

A nun who is part of a research foundation is an investigator checking out unexplained phenomena with religious connections. One is the appearance of a shadow on a mountainside. It appears to be the shadow of a cross upon which a man has been nailed. The shadow of the head moves as if the victim were alive. There were neither clouds,nor trees, nor anything else between the sun and the mountain that could have cast that shadow.

Another phenomenon is a girl, declared brain dead, after being struck by lightning. Now in a hospital bed, she speaks Biblical verses in Latin. And on one occasion, she was given a pencil and pad and began auto-writing, drawing a map....which linked, it was revealed, to Bill Pullman's daughter. These miraculous goings-on only happen during storms with lightning and thunder.

As hokey as I make it seem, it was beautifully done; the acting is first-rate. I am eager for part 2.