There is nothing new under the sun in Battle for Saipan, though the way writer-director Brandon Slagle has chosen to tell this story is quite discomforting. The film is set on the island of Saipan in July 1944, the month after “Pacific D-Day,” as a patrol of American soldiers is ambushed by their Japanese opponents and attempt to make a last stand while trapped behind enemy lines. That’s about as deep as Slagle’s screenplay gets into any sort of geopolitical understanding of this conflict, mainly because the filmmaker is too busy treating the Japanese soldiers as mostly faceless target practice for Incredibly Heroic Heroes.
Battle for Saipan is basically propaganda on behalf of the United States military; dramatically, that turns out to be less of a problem than its dull, repetitive structure. The idea of a troop of American soldiers fighting off “The Enemy” might have a certain ring to that recalls certain video game franchises (perhaps the one about a call to duty or another about earning an honorable medal) in fairly off-putting ways. A significant portion of the climactic action sequence features an American officer gunning down dozens upon dozens of insurgents by means of an incredibly high-powered machine gun with apparently no ammunition limit. Meanwhile, the Japanese commanding officer stalks the scene, never speaking a single word of dialogue before being blown up in a Hail-Mary act.
In the end, the movie simply adds up to no more than familiar themes of violence: its effects on the body, its senselessness when “The Enemy” is the perpetrator and its righteousness when “good” people hold the weapons. This is nothing new for pro-military cinema, of course, and so the gradations among the worst examples reside in minor distinctions. One can take solace that this is no worse than some of the less fortunate examples, whether Hollywood product starring John Wayne or quickies churned out by the Cannon Group. Battle for Saipan is not much better, which is a problem.
The characters barely matter, and the actors react accordingly, barely registering their charges as distinct human beings. The de facto protagonists are Porter (Louis Mandylor, overperforming every line of dialogue to the point that he becomes unlikable) and Vic (Casper Van Dien, a giant hunk of cardboard), who lead the charge against the insurgent army with the help of an interchangeable crew. We also get a hammy Jeff Fahey as cigar-smoking General Carroll, who is here to fill the type of role perfected by Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now. We are a long way from Francis Ford Coppola masterpiece (or any other prestige war film) with Battle for Saipan, which features a lot of vaguely competent but muddy combat sequences and attempts at tension that fall far short. This is a simplistic, one-note, dreadfully familiar waste of time and energy, barely fit even for the gung-ho demographic that would ordinarily relish yet another cinematic military victory for the USA.
Photo courtesy of Saban Films
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