Word: flashbacks
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Putting out a campus publication requires a certain amount of blustery egotism. It's no surprise that overlaps in readership and similar beats foster a certain amount of healthy competition between mags, papers, or otherwise. Previous models of the groovy train stood at the forefront of such rivalries. Flashback to last year...
...film begins (after a Vietnam flashback, which shows how Jackson and Tommy Lee Jones became blood brothers) with an angry mob outside the U.S. embassy in Yemen. Childers and his troops are helicoptered in to protect the embassy and, if necessary, to remove the ambassador. Childers saves the cowardly ambassador (played by an uncreative Ben Kingsley) and his family, and even more importantly, he rescues the American flag from the roof of the building. The next task is to fight off those dangerous Yemenites. Jackson becomes agitated after three of his troops are shot, so instead of focussing on warding...
...those tragic-looking hand-carved crutches. She is adorable, and a perfect figure to represent the suffering Childers caused. That is, the first time we see her. She hobbles around incessantly, silently leading Hodges around. He thinks about her on his trip back. We get another flashback later on and by this point she has gone from a horrifying symbol to being annoying, and faintly humorous...
...haunting first single, "Save Me," ponders emotional rescue, with Mann begging to be liberated from "the ranks of the freaks who suspect they can never love anyone." Mann's folk-pop provides an appropriate backdrop for her deep, probing lyrics. The soundtrack also contains two gems from Supertramp, a flashback to the early '90s with Gabrielle's "Dreams," and the movie's instrumental theme by Jon Brion. But, in the end, it is Mann's work that carries this disc to greatness. Anderson's movie has quite a task in living up to the expectations created by this masterful soundtrack...
Because of the visual style he chooses, Hicks is able to retain the novel's dense, multi-tiered flashback structure. Though the screenplay is, for the most part, religiously faithful to the novel, Hicks does take a few very slight liberties with the ending. More cynical viewers may find his alterations maudlin; I found them highly effective--and appropriate, given the film's overall tone...