Streamers

I agree with some other reviewers that the huge flaw in this movie is the script. Maybe in live theatre this dialog is compelling, but on screen it is just bombastic. The highly formal and eloquent prose is beautiful writing, but it keeps the characters from coming alive. Nobody anywhere talks like these characters.

This could have been a powerful movie about important issues that I happen to care about a lot; it comes across instead as an acting exercise, in which very talented actors carefully read expertly crafted lines. The direction is great, as it is in every Altman movie, but I wish he had not stayed so close to the play. He usually trusted his actors more than the scripts, and not doing so in this movie was a mistake.

Following on the heels of "Come Back to the Five & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean", Altman brings another play to the screen. Like the earlier movie, this is an intensely serious drama about issues of sexuality and denial. Like the earlier movie, parts of it are extremely strident and/or "stagy", and like the earlier movie, much of it is redeemed by the excellent performances.

Although set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, the film is mostly about what goes on inside the heads of a small group of soldiers who are waiting to get shipped out. Much of the story's development is psychological, and not related to the specific period in history... if anything, the characters occasionally seem "too modern", but it's impossible for me to say whether this is actually the case (perhaps done intentionally by the director and screenwriter) or whether my impression of how they "should" have been behaving in the mid-1960s is colored too much by mass-media images from that time.

In any case, Altman and screenwriter David Rabe do a good job of confounding the audience's expectations and providing us with multi-faceted, complex characters, and there are some moments of chilling beauty, as when two older sergeants tell stories of paratroopers who didn't make it. While the issues involved and the serious tone will probably turn a lot of people off, this is a "worthy" member of the Altman canon, and well worth seeking out by anyone who is interested in his "filmed plays" of the 80s or in seeing him work on a small scale.

the honesty is the basic virtue of a film who is a precise image about army, homophobia and war. a form of manifesto. but more subtle and unmerciful and giving the no doubt message in the right terms. a film about masks and vulnerability. about prejudices and about silent. in fact, a film about freedom. simple, direct and out of excuses. and this did it special. because it propose a uncompromising view about a situation who is far to be a secret. because it did not verdicts. only a coherent picture of an institution, about fears of few young men and the dialogue who becomes a large corridor. and the acting is real inspired.

I was excited to see that this film was released on DVD, only to be disappointed when I discovered that it's not available anywhere in the U.S.

My comment on "Streamers" will have to be based on one viewing a few years ago as part of a Robert Altman seminar I took in college. It's a screen adaptation of a David Rabe play, and I look at it as a male counterpart to his virtually all-female stage to screen film from the year before, "Come Back to the 5 and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean."

In "Streamers," a group of Army recruits sit out a long dark weekend in their barracks, awaiting orders to ship off to Vietnam. It's dark, morbid and tense and covers such hot-button issues as racism and homophobia. I recall it all being a bit heavy-handed and one-note; I was mostly exhausted after it was over, and didn't think it was as skillfully directed as "Come Back to the 5 and Dime," which also suffered from hyperbolic material but which Altman worked wonders with.

"Streamers" does boast some pretty solid performances from a young Matthew Modine (who Altman would use again in "Short Cuts") and David Allan Grier, a far cry from the comic work he would do years later in shows like "In Living Color." If I ever have a chance to see it again, I might revise my opinion. But for now,

Grade: B-

Four young soldiers waiting to be shipped to Viet Nam deal with racial tension and their own intolerance when one soldier (Mitchell Lichtenstein) reveals he is gay.

The film debut of David Alan Grier, who has become a bit of a comedy mainstay. Robert Altman, how do you find and cast such talented young actors?

Vincent Canby wrote that the film "goes partway toward realizing the full effect of a stage play as a film, then botches the job by the overabundant use of film techniques, which dismember what should be an ensemble performance." Canby's issue is that the use of close-ups take away the feeling of watching the full performance, where even the non-speaking actors are in view of the audience.

While Canby may be coming down a bit harsh (do movie viewers want the theater experience?), it is worth noting that Altman followed up this film with "Secret Honor", which very much focuses on the actor. In fact, there is not much else to focus on, making it one of the most sparse films ever made.