WRITER: Bruce C. McKenna[SPOILERS] Sky Premiere began airing HBO's ten-part WWII drama last night in the UK, starting with a double-bill. I've already reviewed Part One, if you'd like to check that out, so the review below only covers the second hour:
DIRECTOR: David Nutter
CAST: James Badge Dale, Joseph Mazzello, Jon Seda, William Sadler, Isabel Lucas, Penny McNamee, Cariba Heine, Jacob Pitts, Ashton Holmes, Nikolai Nikolaeff, Brendan Fletcher, Matt Craven, Nathan Corddry, Rami Malek, Matthew Dale, Damon Herriman, Grant Cartwright, Ben Esler, Joshua Close & Jon Bernthal
Part Two was more action-packed than the first, climaxing with the battle of Henderson Field -- where the US marines had to defend an airfield against a seemingly never-ending swarm of Japanese soldiers running full pelt towards them; their gunned down corpses becoming a wall of bodies that heroic Basilone (Jon Seda) risked his life to dismantle so his comrades could maintain a clear line of fire, before running off to get more ammo amidst falling enemy shells. It was bravery rewarded with a medal the morning after, but having lost his best friend Manny Rodriguez (Jon Bernthal) during the conflict, such an honour lost its sheen.
Before this nighttime battle, there was the usual mix of entertaining insights into military life; the men all starving because their naval lifeline had been destroyed, one grunt coping with diarrhoea, the bestowing of nicknames, reading out letters written for loved-ones back home, and stealing fresh supplies that had landed for the army latecomers.
It's all enjoyable to watch, but I've yet to be gripped by The Pacific's characters and plot. Right now it's just a handsome production that's great to look at, but I don't care about anyone yet, or even know most of their names. Part One focused on Leckie (James Badge Dale); Part Two spent some time with Basilone; and young Sledge (Joseph Mazzello) is sidelined in the US because of a medical condition, but will enter the fray before too long now his heart murmur's abated. I guess it's easy enough to focus on those three leads (and preferable to Band Of Brothers' big ensemble), but there are times when it becomes difficult to recognize people because they're in the same uniforms or obscured by helmets in certain angles.
Sometimes, a moment you were supposed to have a strong reaction to slips by because you couldn't comprehend or see what happened, or to whom. Part One and Two have faced a particular problem because all the action has happened in the dark, so it's taken me a few viewings to fathom what was going on sometimes. For instance, I'm not ashamed to admit I thought Basilone's heroics were the work of two men here. Admittedly, I'm not watching The Pacific in glorious HD, where the added clarity would help you see through the murkiness, but did anyone else find themselves losing the thread?I'm also not feeling the passage of time or true ordeal of events, so it can feel strange when you realize weeks of time has passed, or the events you've been watching have been front-page news and everyone's considered national heroes now. Didn't they arrive, like, about four days ago? That's what it feels like. I also don't want to devalue real events, but it's the miniseries that hasn't convinced me we've seen anything out of the ordinary. You watch 10-minutes of a battle, and then you're reminded you just saw the dramatization of a very famous US victory, and it doesn't quite compute. Nothing here seemed big or scary enough to warrant such historical significance.
Each episode opens with a brief documentary featurette to set the scene for events in the ensuing episode, aided by quick interviews with real veterans, and those prologues are doing a much better job making me understand The Pacific campaign. I'm not saying documentaries are inherently better than drama at imparting knowledge, because there are things a drama can do that a documentary will never achieve, but so far The Pacific's drama hasn't got under my skin. A good real-life drama restages historical events as accurately as possible, while imbuing them with characters that can reveal the emotions and humanity a dry history lesson can't. I knew about D-Day for years thanks to my education, but I never felt emotional about it until I saw Saving Private Ryan's opening beach sequence. The Pacific should be pulling the same trick, but it's not quite there yet.
I'm enjoying it; just not feeling it.
Asides
- Just to be clear, I intend to follow Sky's UK broadcast of The Pacific (every Monday, so reviews every Tuesday), as I fell behind with the HBO transmission.
- I'm no doctor, but can heart murmurs clear up that quickly?
