Tigerland (2000)

Premise: At a Vietnam training camp in 1971, Paxton (Matthew Davis) meets Bozz (Colin Farrell). Paxton enlisted and is set to record his army experiences, while Bozz was drafted and is set to torture any and all authority figures for sheer amusement. Also, Bozz can get pretty much anybody out of the army.

It's attraction of opposites time! I have a love/hate thing with those times. For example, I am tired of seeing a free-spirited women help a shy/arrogant inhibited man. So tired of it.

I still, however, love a well-done story that pits an Northern Ivy-leaguer with all the education and good breeding in the world against a less-educated Southern jester/slacker type with more charisma and natural leadership than the Northern's ever seen before or will see again.

Or maybe I'm just a sucker for charisma, which Farrell has in spades here. What happened to you? Natural born scene stealer, tremendously talented player, brought down perhaps by his own ego. Why else would he continue on with such vanity projects? He's a star in the most magnetic sense of the word, but he's so arrogant that he doesn't know what to do with it.

Davis and everyone else was good (shout-outs to Shea Whigham, Clifton Collins Jr, Thomas Guiry, and, yes, Cole Hauser), but they are all moths to the raging fire that is Farrell in this, his only note-worthy performance.

Here's to Joel Schumacher - one of the few directors who is made or unmade by the quality of the script he's shooting. He's got a great handle on the visual, but he's truly stuck when the writers give him nothing to work with.

Here's to Ross Klavan and Michael McGruther - may they have more opportunities to write feature films after a brilliant, thoughtful, and evocative first try. Thanks for giving Joel something to work with.

And here's to the year 2000! It tries so hard to never let me down. A