WRITER: Bruce C. McKenna[SPOILERS] HBO's miniseries is beginning to deliver a depiction of war in all its harrowing, exciting, gruesome and frightening extremes. It's frustrating that The Pacific has waited this long to give audiences what they were primed for -- and I still have no idea why they did a "shore leave" episode so prematurely -- but Part Seven certainly helped redress an imbalance.
DIRECTOR: Tim Van Patten
The carnage at Peleliu continues for a full hour this week, as tired troops march in and out of combat on constant rotation, fighting wily Japs hiding in hundreds of hillside caves and bunkers. It was slow, dangerous and tense work for the marines trying to inch themselves further into enemy territory over tough terrain, and the sense of a living nightmare rested heavy on Sledge's (Joseph Mazzello) young soul, where cigarettes are now his only source of comfort and his trusted Bible has become a means to mark-off the days like a prisoner.
Mazzello gave a better performance this week as Sledge, in-between all his middle-distance staring. He heeded the advice of Captain Haldane (Scott Gibson) in not "dwelling" on the horror he sees, passed on that pearl of wisdom to a comrade, and broke down in tears when Haldane (something of a mentor) was killed off-screen and stretchered past. I particularly loved the moment when Sledge noticed Snafu (Rami Malek) plopping stones into a dead Japanese soldier's skull, cracked open like a boiled egg, and while horrified by the macabre sight he decided to join in by trying to steal a corpse's gold teeth. Interestingly, Snafu was the one who convinced Sledge not to go through with the grisly theft, perhaps knowing it's a slippery slope from stealing teeth to throwing stones into skulls, and doesn't want Sledge to follow him down that particular path.
Overall, I'm still not completely sold on the characters (a few die and it still means nothing because we don't know them very well), and the action scenes are impressive but nothing we haven't seen before, or have seen done better. Still, in respect of what's come before on The Pacific, Part Seven was a more satisfying hour of action and the story did the best job yet of making you feel the physical exhaustion and mental toll war has on young men sent into killing zones.
10 MAY 2010: SKY MOVIES PREMIERE/HD, 9PM
