- 2 days ago
Here’s my review of the movie, In Country.
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Short filmTranscript
00:12hey guys i'm back here on the film scene investigation channel thank you so much for
00:18checking out this video well it's a new week and i have a new review today i will be taking
00:26a look
00:27at the 1989 drama in country just before we get into the review guys if you haven't already please
00:36do consider subscribing to the channel all the support is greatly appreciated so in country
00:44from september 1989 was a movie that was directed by the filmmaker norman jewison and was based on
00:54the novel by the author bobby ann mason filmed on location in the state of kentucky this movie cost
01:03around about 18 million dollars to produce but unfortunately didn't recoup that i think
01:10ultimately it made around about four or five million dollars as for the story it centered around a girl
01:18called sam a newly graduated student who was played by actress emily lloyd she was a very outgoing
01:27individual who had a close relationship with her uncle a guy called emmet who was played by actor
01:34bruce willis he was a vietnam war veteran who suffered from ptsd thanks to his involvement
01:43in the war and he wasn't the only one that was deployed his brother sam's father also went to
01:50vietnam but unfortunately for him he never came home one day we saw sam come across a box filled with
01:59old
01:59letters and photos of her father and this sparked sam's curiosity she had never known her dad but she
02:10wanted to she wanted to know more about him and what he was like and so she started pressing her
02:17uncle
02:17for information and yeah of course i mean it makes total sense that someone would want to
02:24you know find out more about their biological parents you know a lot of time we see people that
02:30are adopted and seek that information out when they you know get older and so sam was no no different
02:38in
02:38that because sam's mother irene wasn't around emmet seemed like the best person to ask and so
02:47she did but unfortunately for her emmet was very very reluctant to talk about the war and express his
02:58you know thoughts and opinions on it he was a deeply scarred individual i mean he had some deep
03:08personal trauma and for him to talk about it in his head that wouldn't help for him he wanted to
03:20suppress everything and pretend like everything was fine sam of course still pressed him for any little
03:28bit of information she could get out of him but emmet was tight-lipped i mean he just didn't want
03:36to
03:36drag up old memories as the story unfolded sam continued in her pursuit to you know discover
03:44more about her dad she read all of the letters that she could find she saw the photos and started
03:52forming
03:53an opinion about who he was and what he was like sam ended up visiting her grandparents and this is
04:01where
04:01she was given some old private diaries of her father's diaries that contained you know personal private
04:10thoughts of his and this of course would give her a better understanding of who he was you see the
04:17grandma she knew that sam wanted to you know know as much as possible and by sharing you know the
04:25journals
04:25the diaries well that was her way of trying to help emmett on the other hand was falling deeper and
04:35deeper
04:35into depression heavily drinking and generally not taking care of himself you see he hadn't come to terms
04:45with the issues that he had regarding the war he didn't have the mental fortitude to really
04:55cope with that you know and and with that as i said he just wanted to pretend that everything was
05:02fine
05:02of course to everyone else they knew he was suffering let's talk about the film's ending as the story
05:11culminated with emmett sam and sam's grandmother all visiting the war memorial in washington dc
05:21this gave everyone a chance to you know pay their respects and find some sort of closure now on paper
05:32the idea of ending your film with the characters simply visiting a memorial and paying their respects
05:41yeah it doesn't sound exactly riveting but honestly i was very impressed with how everything
05:51turned out it really was a bittersweet moment to see all of the family members take it in turns to
06:01touch
06:02the dad's engraving on the wall just from seeing the characters faces it meant so much to them
06:12and that's why it was so powerful watching it all play out i will admit i definitely felt some sadness
06:24especially when we saw the shots of sam's graduation photo that really did uh pull on the heartstrings you
06:34know and i think that that's that's because he was a soldier that never got to see his daughter grow
06:42up
06:43you know that aspect that had never really entered my mind and um yeah it was it was very touching
06:52and also
06:54so the idea of sam a young woman who never knew her father but still wanted to you know make
07:07him proud of
07:09you know who she was and that that was heartbreaking so after watching in country one of the first thoughts
07:19that popped into my head
07:21was that a film like this just wouldn't be made today you know given the current landscape of hollywood
07:31you know patriotism is uh generally frowned upon by studio executives in their warped minds
07:43the american flag is something not to be celebrated but you see when i watched in country for me it
07:53really uh
07:54it really embodied americana that that idea of what an american is you know the land of the free
08:07the home of the brave absolutely and so when you have that and you take that and put that into
08:1321st century hollywood
08:17it's just not going to fly is it it's just not going to happen you see if there were to
08:22be
08:22a remake of in country i'd hate to uh see what it would end up looking like i'm sure some
08:30dei
08:31hires would be involved let alone just um i'm sure a very negative outlook on america in general back
08:42in the 80s the world was very different and filmmakers had less restrictions and regulations to follow
08:53filmmakers could actually go out and make actual movies that resonated with a
09:00general audience and unfortunately over the years that has been lost nowadays it's all about the
09:08numbers how much money can we make everything's commodified you know everything's a franchise
09:16and yeah just the kind of the heart and soul of hollywood if there ever was one has been you
09:23know
09:23truly ripped out technically in country was a very well-made movie that really captured that um spirit of
09:34middle america in the 1980s the cinematographer russell boyd used the kentucky landscapes to his advantage
09:44using a number of wide establishing shots that uh yeah no really really look beautiful on screen
09:51as for the music the late composer james horner delivered a very sweeping and melodramatic score
10:00that um i actually really enjoyed now i'm gonna be honest i'm not uh one for these kind of big
10:10cinematic scores but um honestly i thought horner's work really suited
10:18the vibe and tone you know that patriotic vibe that the uh film was going for prior to this james
10:28horner
10:29had just produced the score to the film field of dreams from 1988 so yeah absolutely you know he was
10:39the uh
10:40right guy perfectly suited for the job when it comes to the performances emily lloyd was absolutely fantastic
10:50in this film and given the limited acting experience that she had at the time it was even more impressive
11:00she held it all together you know she really did and even though her co-star bruce willis
11:06got top billing make no mistake this is emily lloyd's movie now the actress is from england
11:15and that really did surprise me because her southern american accent it sounded so authentic it really did
11:25and yeah i i thought she was american she really did embody that all american 1980s teenager
11:36and like most teenagers she was very impulsive wanting to know the truth about her father and that too
11:45was very authentic the sam character was very endearing with her inquisitive nature and positive attitude
11:55and when you think about the subject matter this film could have been very depressing and you know
12:02don't get me wrong there are moments of that but generally speaking just from the way that the
12:09actress emily lloyd was on screen as she brought this certain energy certain charisma about her overall
12:18there was uh kind of a layer of hopefulness surrounding the whole film i had no idea who emily lloyd
12:27was
12:27i'd never heard of her never seen any of her films and so you know after being so impressed by
12:35her
12:35performance i you know i went online and decided to check out her filmography and that was where
12:42i found out that unfortunately she never went on to have this big hollywood career all thanks to some
12:49long-term mental illness it really is sad that health issues you know got in the way because honestly
12:59she showed so much potential here it's an award-worthy performance and um yeah just kind of sad to you
13:11know find that out that she never went on to bigger and better things as for bruce willis he was
13:18equally
13:19impressive delivering one of the most underrated performances i've ever seen he played emmett smith a
13:28jaded war veteran who was unable to cope with what had happened to him in the vietnam war
13:36and just from the body language you know the slouched shoulders to the wide-eyed stares
13:43it was pretty clear that uh emmett was emotionally checked out now while i thought bruce willis was
13:53brilliant throughout the whole film his best scene was towards the very end when we saw him
14:01emotionally break down in the woods this was the first time that he finally acknowledged his pain
14:09and we found out the root cause of what it was and it was down to the fact that emmett
14:15felt guilty
14:16for surviving his war buddies the people he was close to they perished they died and that was something
14:27that just it just was a massive burden for emmett he really couldn't get over the fact that he was
14:36the
14:36one who survived like why him why was he the lucky one you know in that moment you really felt
14:43emmett's
14:44pain you know what he was going through the despair the anxiety the depression and you know sam was there
14:52trying to console him you know doing her best just a very sad but brilliantly performed scene i also
15:02wanted to quickly mention the actress joan allen who played sam's mother irene now she was a character
15:11that wasn't really involved that wasn't really involved that much in the story alan only had you know a few
15:19scenes but all things considered she was very good what i found really interesting was that sam was upset
15:28at her mother because irene had never really brought up the dad in conversation she never really had
15:36shared any memories of him and yeah that led to some resentment but ultimately irene was a woman that
15:46never really knew this guy she never knew sam's father because he was deployed very shortly after they
15:54got together and then he died you know it wasn't some whirlwind romance you know it was kind of over
16:03before before it ever began and so that revelation i thought added a new kind of dimension to the
16:12overall story now it's quite interesting to see that it wasn't irene it wasn't the mother that was holding
16:20back she really had nothing to share and so dislikes for in country from 1989 when it comes to the
16:32dislikes
16:33there wasn't really anything that jumped out at me in terms of being really negative overall i thoroughly
16:41enjoyed the film i guess if i was going to pick something the run time was a little long and
16:51there
16:51were a few scenes here and there that certainly could have been either trimmed or outright removed now this
17:00movie was based on a book so of course the filmmakers wanted to you know try and include everything into
17:08the story but sometimes that can be detrimental to the overall viewing experience for example i wasn't all
17:20that keen on sam's relationship with the mechanic the older man called tom who was played by actor john
17:29terry now there were several scenes of these guys you know getting together hanging out and
17:36there wasn't anything necessarily wrong with that but having kind of watched the film and looking back in
17:45retrospect that stuff it didn't really add anything new to the story we'd already seen sam having this on off
17:55relationship with her boyfriend laney so yeah the whole kind of boyfriend relationship and kind of drama
18:04we'd already seen that i don't think we really needed to see any more of it but once again i
18:09get it it is based on the novel so
18:11you know the filmmakers are kind of their hands are tied and so ratings for in country from 1989
18:22i'm going to be rating this movie a 6.9 out of 10. in country was a heartfelt movie about
18:33a young woman
18:34just trying to find more information about the dad that she never met unlike your traditional war movies this
18:43film focused on how the brutal events of a war can lead to long-term trauma even for those who
18:53are not
18:53directly involved the film suggested that through loving and caring for one another
19:02healing is possible and that was a really positive message that i think needs to be more present in
19:12today's hollywood landscape if you've seen in country then please let me know your thoughts and memories
19:20in the comment section below for those out there who haven't seen this one yet
19:25i do recommend it especially if you are a bruce willis fan he's an actor who's retired he's no longer
19:36doing or making films and that's a shame but that being said if i'm honest this this movie his performance
19:47is emmett smith that's kind of how i want to remember bruce willis as an actor he was that good
19:54and
19:55well that's all for me today guys i do hope you've enjoyed this review of in country from 1989 i'll
20:04be
20:04back next week so don't forget if you haven't please do consider subscribing it means a lot and of course
20:10take care
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