Word: meechum
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Robert Duvall brings great strength to the movie as Bull Meechum, a Marine pilot who, after flying in Europe for NATO, returns to his family in the States. He calls himself the Great Santini, convinced of his worthiness of the grandiose title in a friendly, arrogant sort of way. Keyed up by an unlimited confidence and a "can-do" attitude, what makes Meechum tick is the same patriotic puffery that inspired Lyndon Johnson. His 17-year-old son, his wife, his pubescent daughter and smallest son, find it difficult to receive back into the family a father who seems more...
...when the refuses to admit defeat in a game of basketball against his son. After playing dirty in the first place, he taunts his son for being a sissy, a homosexual, and a girl, because the boy will not continue to keep playing until the father wins. Meechum shoves his wife to the ground and kicks his other children away when they protest that his son has beaten him fair and square. The situation defuses quietly after the initial heat--but the incident rips wide open a blister in the family that has festered since Bull Meechum's return, sowing...
...Marine Corps runs, does not walk, through his veins. He is tough on his men, his family, himself. Everyone's back hairs stand at attention when Bull Meechum marches into the room. Once, in that great good war against Hitler, Bull was a genuine air ace with a heroic nom de guerre: the Great Santini. Now, in 1962, when only statesmen get to go eyeball to eyeball with the enemy, Bull finds himself out of meaningful work - orchestrating practice missions in the skies over Beaufort, S.C. He might as well be running the shooting-gallery concession at a penny...
...presents the viewer with people he can take home with him, because they were always there. Lewis John Carlino has adapted Pat Conroy's novel without much cinematic grace, but the artlessness serves the subject and showcases three splendid performances: Blythe Banner as the willowy, resilient Lillian Meechum; Michael O'Keefe as 18-year-old Ben, his father's cross and joy; and, above all, Robert Duvall as the raging Bull-sacred monster, gung-ho dinosaur, one-man nuclear-family holocaust-who can do everything except express what he feels for the people he loves...
...liberal humanism and "small" subject: the family. Now Santini has found an almost posthumous success in a Manhattan bijou. Critics helped lead the right audience to it: fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, young people who care to remember where they came from and what they might become. Bull Meechum lives again. He can finally rest in peace. -By Richard Corliss