Tigerland (2000)

It is certainly interesting to write a review about a film that took place where I actually resided for two months. In September of 1971 when this film is set, your's truly was doing his basic training at Fort Polk, Louisiana. I did get to the North Fort at one point in my training where the infamous Tigerland was located. In fact Tigerland was a nickname given to the whole northern part of the army base.

I was doing the basic training to be a weekend warrior and avoid Vietnam. But I saw so many of the kids who were just like the ones portrayed in the film it was actually a rather nerve wrecking old home week. In 1971 everyone except the policy makers in Washington knew that this was going to end when as Senator George Aiken declared, we said we won and then went home. And of course the South Vietnamese government we were protecting would fold like a napkin.

By that time the army was scraping the bottom for soldier material and you can see it in the company of men that are in Tigerland. This is where more soldiers shipped for Vietnam than any other place in the nation. The Louisiana swamps best approximated the climate conditions of Vietnam.

This particular company has a real odd ball in it with Colin Farrell. He's doing his best to get out of the army, but the army just won't oblige him. So he's waging his own war against them by becoming a 'barracks lawyer' and getting others out. And he's driving the officers and NCOs quite nuts doing it.

I would rate Tigerland a lot higher because there is much I liked about the film. It was not shot at Fort Polk, but in places that gave you feel of the place. What I remember best about it was rain and mud. In that summer of 1971 it rained nearly every single day I was there. But the rain and sometimes it would come a few times a day. Would be a sudden downpour, maybe at most 20 minutes then it would cool off and then resume being muggy. And the ground couldn't absorb it fast enough so it was always muddy. You did your best work in that brief period after rain stopped it was then actually decent enough for normal activities.

What I couldn't quite grasp was Colin Farrell's motivations for what he was doing. I blame that on the writer and also the director.

As for the other players the best in the cast was Thomas Guiry playing this poor sad sack kid from the Louisiana bayous. I met a few just like him, he stopped his formal education at the 6th grade. It was a touching performance on Guiry's part.

So here's to Fort Polk, not a place I recommend, but sometimes a place which is needed to train our soldiers. It got a good film, but not a great one in its honor.

Fmovies: It's been awhile since I saw it and would not waste my time watching it again but as a Nam vet and NCO who went through Tigerland twice, once as a trainee and once as a training sergeant, this movie was very disappointing. Not real historically accurate on many fronts. Most importantly this whole deal about Bozz being such an individualist and non conformist is pure nonsense. The whole point of military training, especially for combat infantry is to eliminate individualism and get everyone playing on the same team. There is no room for non conformity in combat. Our combat units could not be effective if we had any doubt of what to expect from the guy or the unit next to us. Guys like the Bozz character depicted in this movie end up in the stockade or at least get run out of combat units. Although not technically a war movie because it covers only training for war, it is a movie whose central theme is about Vietnam and on that note I found it to be the second worst Vietnam genre movie behind only that miserable piece of garbage, Tunnel Rats.

TIGERLAND / (2000) ***1/2 (out of four)

By Blake French:

Throughout the years audiences have seen and understood war films with every point of view possible, and somehow producers and writers always come up with new and innovative methods of portraying various soldiers on the battlefield. Joel Schumacher ("8MM," "A Time to Kill"), easily one of the riskiest directors currently working, has found resemblance with "The Thin Red Line" in the way his new drama "Tigerland" steps in an individual soldier's shoes. This movie, written by Ross Klavan and Michael McGuther, has more guts and irony than "The Thin Red Line" or even "Saving Private Ryan." Although the movie's dramatic impact is somewhat lessened due to the perversity of the material present, it certainly enlightens us on a new perspective of young men training for war.

I would want to know Joel Schumacher's experiences with the army. Are the men really this unabashed and brutal? I am sure some of them are, but the movie views its uncompromising world through the eyes of a young man named Roland Bozz (Colin Farrell), who is rebellious against the ideas of war. His personality instantly counteracts with several other characters, one who becomes his best friend, Paxton (Matthew Davis), and another, Wilson (Russell Richardson), whose flamed temper often exasperates Bozz's tension with the idea of going to war. The war depicted in this production is not found on a battlefield, but on training grounds of a Louisiana-based instruction camp between conceptions and fears of the soldiers in training. This film is specifically about the preparation for war, nothing more nothing less. It ends when the soldiers finally go to war, kind of disappointing since witnessing the characters in action would have served as a supurb payoff.

Shot on location in about 28 days using 16mm stock and a minuscule budget, Joel Schumacher accurately displays a gritty, perverse, cruel, and unmerciful atmosphere using hand-held cinematography, unique lighting techniques and direct sound. Schumacher's grainy and blown-out images make the movie feel like a documentary feature. This unusual style of filmmaking only contributes to the hard core realism of the movie, quite graphic in its use of coarse language, perhaps a little too disturbing. Waves of four-letter words pound the audience, some in shock of what they are hearing. Even the extreme amount of vulgarism does not keep the dialogue from prevailing as heartbreaking, true, and emotional.

If anything, "Tigerland" provides us with a minor appreciation of how much our soldiers go through for our country in the beginning stages of combat. Such bravery must it take to enlist in the army during times of war, knowing the hardships and risks that are being taken. Such thought-provoking ideas are made possible through the heartbreaking performances by the young aspiring actors who portray the various trainees. This movie is not for all audiences, but one that young men should take a look at before enlisting themselves in the army...and adult audiences should watch to appreciate the courage needed to do such.

Tigerland fmovies. TIGERLAND takes place entirely within the confines of Infantry Training at Fort Polk, LA, and its immediate surroundings, 1971. The film itself does NOT actually go to Vietnam.

The whole character of Roland Bozz (memorably played by Colin Farrell) is utterly intriguing. He's a bit overblown: A would-be perfect soldier, perfect leader, perfect shot, in perfect physical and mental condition. . .a rough, cynical, yet still paradoxically gentle character who just doesn't like armies and war and killing. Nevertheless, I think it would have detracted from the film if Bozz were not a bit larger-than-life. Ditto for the other characters, including the sergeants (both the cruel, sadistic, war-maddened ones and the tough but professional ones) and the other trainees (an interesting and convincing bunch of mixed motivations). While TIGERLAND's plot is quite gripping, it's essentially a character-driven film in the end, and the exemplary acting by just about everyone is what makes it such a success.

I've noticed some other reviewers'--some of whom actually trained at Fork Polk during the Vietnam years--objections to TIGERLAND's depiction of the U.S. Army, particularly in regards to its training methods and employment of borderline-psychotic instructors. Duly noted, but it's safe to say that the U.S. military HAS made ample use of such methods/people at various times and places in the past. The film may not be perfectly realistic in every respect; however, it's also important to remember that it's set at a time when America, though still anemically hoping to win in Vietnam and still sending unfortunate draftees to same, was also trying to extricate itself from a war whose futility was becoming increasingly obvious. TIGERLAND captures the special malaise of the early '70s war with dead-eyed accuracy. Most importantly of all, it's a compelling portrayal of an anti-hero fighting against an army and system that doesn't play by any fair rules--not even its own.

War drama that takes place in Louisiana in 1971. It follows a bunch of recruits through basic training and then Tigerland--an accurate portrayal of Vietnam on American soil, before they're shipped over. It focuses on two men--Booz (Colin Farrell) and Paxton (Matthew Davis)...how they meet, become friends and deal with a corwardly squadron leader (Clifton Collins Jr.) and a borderline psycho (Shea Wingham).

A surprisingly non-commercial film directed by Joel Schumacher. He uses a hand-held camera throughout most of the movie and uses digital video for the combat scenes. It works very well--the film looks gritty (as it should) and uncomfortably realistic.

Farrell successfully covers up his Irish brogue and adopts a pretty convincing Southern accent. His performance is just superb--he's an extremely talented young man. Davis, unfortunately, is not that good. He's tall, muscular, very handsome--and very bland. The rest of the cast however is just great.

This film was thrown away by its studio. It had no stars in it, a familar story and was considered "just another war film". It only played a week in Boston! It's well worth catching on video or DVD.

Also, Farrell and Davis have a lengthy nude scene.

TIGERLAND (2000) ***1/2 Colin Farrell, Matthew Davis, Clifton Collins, Jr., Thomas Guiry, Shea Whigham, Russell Richardson, Nick Searcy, Afemo Omilani, James McDonald, Keith Ewell, Arian Ash, Haven Gaston, Cole Hauser. Filmmaker Joel Schumacher makes an audacious attempt to rekindle his directing juices in this low-budget semi-independent film about Vietnam with a cast of unknowns that works remarkably well. Set circa 1971 Louisiana in a special Army training camp for new recruits prior to shipment in the ongoing war and told in flashback by one of the survivors the film centers its bare bones plot around the able shoulders of Irish newcomer Farrell in a potential star-making turn as Private Roland Bozz (think 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' in fatigues and you get the overall impression), a feckless troublemaker of his platoon whose antics have a method to his madness: keeping yourself alive despite the odds. Raw and uncompromising are best suited to describe the film's gist and in particular its focus of Bozz leading his comrades in arms through their hellish grunt duty prior to their fated dooms. Original and smartly written by Ross Klaven and Michael McGruther giving their characters a fresh spin on an all too familiar genre with humanity at its core.