HOME |  CULT MOVIES | COMPETITIONS | ADVERTISE |  CONTACT US |  ABOUT US
 
 
 
Newest Reviews
American Fiction
Poor Things
Thunderclap
Zeiram
Legend of the Bat
Party Line
Night Fright
Pacha, Le
Kimi
Assemble Insert
Venus Tear Diamond, The
Promare
Beauty's Evil Roses, The
Free Guy
Huck and Tom's Mississippi Adventure
Rejuvenator, The
Who Fears the Devil?
Guignolo, Le
Batman, The
Land of Many Perfumes
Cat vs. Rat
Tom & Jerry: The Movie
Naked Violence
Joyeuses Pacques
Strangeness, The
How I Became a Superhero
Golden Nun
Incident at Phantom Hill
Winterhawk
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City
Maigret Sets a Trap
B.N.A.
Hell's Wind Staff, The
Topo Gigio and the Missile War
Battant, Le
Penguin Highway
Cazadore de Demonios
Snatchers
Imperial Swordsman
Foxtrap
   
 
Newest Articles
3 From Arrow Player: Sweet Sugar, Girls Nite Out and Manhattan Baby
Little Cat Feat: Stephen King's Cat's Eye on 4K UHD
La Violence: Dobermann at 25
Serious Comedy: The Wrong Arm of the Law on Blu-ray
DC Showcase: Constantine - The House of Mystery and More on Blu-ray
Monster Fun: Three Monster Tales of Sci-Fi Terror on Blu-ray
State of the 70s: Play for Today Volume 3 on Blu-ray
The Movie Damned: Cursed Films II on Shudder
The Dead of Night: In Cold Blood on Blu-ray
Suave and Sophisticated: The Persuaders! Take 50 on Blu-ray
Your Rules are Really Beginning to Annoy Me: Escape from L.A. on 4K UHD
A Woman's Viewfinder: The Camera is Ours on DVD
Chaplin's Silent Pursuit: Modern Times on Blu-ray
The Ecstasy of Cosmic Boredom: Dark Star on Arrow
A Frosty Reception: South and The Great White Silence on Blu-ray
You'll Never Guess Which is Sammo: Skinny Tiger and Fatty Dragon on Blu-ray
Two Christopher Miles Shorts: The Six-Sided Triangle/Rhythm 'n' Greens on Blu-ray
Not So Permissive: The Lovers! on Blu-ray
Uncomfortable Truths: Three Shorts by Andrea Arnold on MUBI
The Call of Nostalgia: Ghostbusters Afterlife on Blu-ray
Moon Night - Space 1999: Super Space Theater on Blu-ray
Super Sammo: Warriors Two and The Prodigal Son on Blu-ray
Sex vs Violence: In the Realm of the Senses on Blu-ray
What's So Funny About Brit Horror? Vampira and Bloodbath at the House of Death on Arrow
Keeping the Beatles Alive: Get Back
   
 
  Ugly American, The The Domino Effect
Year: 1963
Director: George Englund
Stars: Marlon Brando, Eiji Okada, Sandra Church, Pat Hingle, Arthur Hill, Jocelyn Brando, Kukrit Pramoj, Judson Pratt, Reiko Sato, George Shibata, Judson Laire, Philip Ober, Lee Tak Yip, Carl Benton Reid, Simon Scott, Stefan Schnabel
Genre: DramaBuy from Amazon
Rating:  5 (from 2 votes)
Review: In the nation of Sarkan, there has been a scheme implemented to build a long road known as the Freedom Road through its jungles to open it up to trade and the wider world, but not everyone is happy about this state of affairs. The local Communists regard this so-called progress as another example of Imperialist influence over their country, and are determined to sabotage it and send the Americans, who have backed the construction, packing. To set this off, they stage an accident that is apparently down to a drunken American driver on the site that kills one of the locals, but while the Sarkan population sees this as proof the visitors are not on their side, others know better...

The Ugly American was based on the political novel of the same name by William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick, though inevitably it was watered down so much in transition from page to screen that the book's fans were most aggrieved by what Hollywood had done to the savvy points raised by the authors. Besides, it was released almost immediately before President John F. Kennedy was assassinated and the Vietnam War dramatically escalated, leaving it a victim of history within months, as the political situation was moving so rapidly that the material as presented here in earnest fashion had swiftly dated to the extent that the movie, if not the source, was dismissed.

Naturally, everyone would see that Sarkan was a thinly disguised Vietnam with its split between North and South, the Communists vying for control with the Westerners, and a civil war about to explode in the pressure cooker environment, but that merely had you wondering why the filmmakers did not simply call a spade a spade and concoct a movie about Vietnam instead. The location work was shot in Thailand, necessitating a caption at the beginning informing us we were not to confuse that nation with any other South Eastern land this may or may not be about, another example of how toothless this was coming across, no matter how hard hitting it wanted to be.

Marlon Brando was the star, in the days when he was still a politically engaged celebrity, yet his good intentions were undercut by the stuffed shirt character he was asked to portray, supposedly a liberal-minded ambassador but actually having his reasonable attitude confronted as purely another instance of American expansion across the world. We know this because director George Englund saw fit to present what theories that survived from the text in long, not exactly exciting arguments, Brando's Harrison Carter MacWhite verbally sparring with the leader of the planned revolution, his old friend Deong, who was played by Japanese star Eiji Okada, personally recruited on Brando's insistence after impressing him in international hits like Hiroshima Mon Amour and Woman in the Dunes.

Interestingly, Okada was a Communist in real life, which you would think would offer an edge to proceedings, but when the arguments simply resolved into scenes of the two stars shouting at one another it was all too easy to zone out and hope for something more exciting to happen. The trouble with that being, although there was a revolution to come, nothing really did, The Ugly American moved at a snail's pace and its own sense of self-importance given the seriousness of the subject it was examining made for a dry lecture that was not even particularly certain of what it was getting at. Something about Americans not standing by the beliefs and tenets that made their country great, and allowing the high standards to slip, which aside from not being too helpful in its vagueness, seemed to exonerate American foreign policy from the deadly Tango it danced with the Soviets in places like Vietnam. The final switching off of MacWhite's speech on television is supposed to be damning; more likely you'll sympathise as this was telling you nothing useful. Music by Frank Skinner.
Reviewer: Graeme Clark

 

This review has been viewed 3426 time(s).

As a member you could Rate this film

 
Review Comments (0)


Untitled 1

Login
  Username:
 
  Password:
 
   
 
Forgotten your details? Enter email address in Username box and click Reminder. Your details will be emailed to you.
   

Latest Poll
Which star probably has psychic powers?
Laurence Fishburne
Nicolas Cage
Anya Taylor-Joy
Patrick Stewart
Sissy Spacek
Michelle Yeoh
Aubrey Plaza
Tom Cruise
Beatrice Dalle
Michael Ironside
   
 
   

Recent Visitors
  Stuart Watmough
Paul Shrimpton
Darren Jones
Mary Sibley
Enoch Sneed
Mark Le Surf-hall
  Louise Hackett
Andrew Pragasam
   

 

Last Updated: