Comment by Magic Marmalade:
Gods and generals, soldiers and men.
I'd not seen this since it came out on home video back in the nineties, so recollection was a little hazy to say the least... ultimately, I think I'd just dismissed it at the time as being a bit of stock action / sci-fi fluff of the time, of which there was plenty, mostly to keep actors who were once something in work, and use their waning star to sell a bit of garbage.
...And mostly, that is what is going on here, but there is so much more besides, that makes this worth a watch, and a very enjoyable one too!
In essence, this is "high concept" sci-fi, of the kind that, at it's heart is socially philosophical, and punctuated by spells of action, around some character driven movie-making.
The central concept, about a kind of updated "man with no name" character, a special forces character, who is convicted, and sent to a penal colony island for inexplicably killing his senior officer in the opening credits, and is dropped in the middle of the two opposing factions of convicts on the island, one, a Mad-Max style gang of deranged criminals, the other, a more civilized, semi-hippie group of more peace loving, repentants, while he tries to work the angles to get himself off the island.
As much as a reach it may seem, I think this movie was actually inspired by more lofty ambitions, as it appears this is based somewhat on Homer's Iliad... The warden / private prison island owner, being the "God" of the island, and the leaders of each faction, played respectively, by the brilliantly, and playfully deranged Stuart Wilson, and the, for once, benevolent good guy Lance Henriksen on the other, each representing the kind of "generals" (Agamemnon and Priam, respectively), and Liotta being a kind of.. maybe... Odysseus?
(In fact, this is all but confirmed, to me at least, by the ending, which offers a nice twist on the Trojan Horse scenario - Even though that particular scene doesn't actually appear in The Iliad, despite popular misconception)
This is clearly an upscaled indie movie, or a low budget Hollywood movie, as there's plenty that's impressive about it, form the sparse, yet razor sharp dialogue, pretty good cinematography, and a wonderfully intriguing score, which is a blend of sweeping Hollywood soundtrack score, mixed with more experimental, primal sounds and noises, very much in the Hans Zimmer mode...As much as there's some dodgy, low budget elements too, such as the distinct lack of character building for Liotta's main character - only at the end, do we get a brief explanation of who he is, and what's driving him.
There's plenty of British character actors of the time, who Brits will recognize from British film and TV from the seventies and eighties (much like Fincher populated Alien 3 with), and a couple of steady-Eddie's from American movies, like Ernie Hudson and Kevin Dillon.
So in all, it's pretty solid, competent piece of social sci-fi / drama / action.
- I offer only one additional note: The original DVD release I watched this off of made it seem like this movie was shot entirely in close-ups, which is disorienting, as it gives a woozy feel to camera motion, as well as seeming a waste of the set and production design, but at few moments in this DVD watch made me realise that what has actually happened is that it has been rather unceremoniously, and artlessly cropped around a zoom in frame, oddly, to make it seem less cinematic, and more "made for TV" - tops of heads are cropped, odd looking framing and composition etc. So, I don't know if it's available, but I'd recommend getting a restored version instead of the original DVD (semi-rare though it is), as this may have the full, original shots in place, and not feel so weird to look at.
