On the Beach | Armand Assante, Rachel Ward | Well-done tale of the End of the World.

On the Beach | Armand Assante, Rachel Ward | On The Beach

DVDs:

On the Beach

	On the Beach Armand Assante, Rachel Ward Platinum Disc, 2005 average customer review:based on 32 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Studio: Platinum Disc Llc Release Date: 01/31/2006 Run time: 209 minutes

Well-done tale of the End of the World.

I read Nevil Shute's book several years ago and thought it amazing. Recently, when culling some books from my bookshelves, I re-read it once again one afternoon. When I read the book the first time, I didn't even know of this classic film. However, I had learned of it since I reading the book the last time, so I ordered this film and, of course, the classic with Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner.

The cast here was wonderful. The only exception to this was Armand Assante's performance here. I used to think Assante was superb- an underrated wonderful actor I didn't get to see too much. Here, though, he sounded an awful lot like Rocky Balboa. I guess that's okay-- I mean, there are Submarine Commanders that can sound like Rocky Balboa but, sometimes, it was off-putting. Other than that, he was good and still very likable.

Rachel Ward's performance was good. I think her character was probably the most difficult to play (as was Ava Gardner's in the first movie). Her character had to be brash, wild, remorseful, drunk, sad, smart, lonely, and regretful while still remaining empathetic. She did succeed but, like Ava Gardner before her, I found myself critiquing her performance rather than getting completely lost in the movie. Still, she did do a very good job and never went over the edge into parody (which could have been easy to do).

The young Australian couple (Mark Pennell and a young woman whose name escapes me) were perfect. They played their roles with remarkable depth and were probably the best of the bunch.

The story is truly staggering. Taking place in Australia, the citizens are the last known society waiting for imminent death by radioactive fallout which is slowly moving across the earth. Everyone else is dead and they, too, will be dead soon. This film is about how this small group of people spend their last months.

(Shute's book is not perfectly written. I remember he calls the baby "it" so many times it was a bit disturbing. Parents don't refer to the baby as "it" too many times after he or she is born! However, certain characters and the story itself are so memorable, despite the book's flaws, that it is a must-read.)

This movie is wholeheartedly recommended. Especially if you are sharing it with your (older) children, I think they'd be more interested in this version than the older one. There are little changes from the book to the movie that seem to work here but were truly astounding in the book. The most important change, I think, is how Captain Towers dealt with his family's believed demise. In the book, Towers spoke of them as if they were still alive-- so horrid was the consideration of anything else. Moira, towards the end, found purpose in helping him perpetuate this belief and found the purpose she was looking for in doing this. Here, though, Captain Towers deals with it a bit more realistically. The choice the filmmakers made here was the weaker choice, in my opinion.

They did make some good choices, too, though- a lot of them. In this film, we see the cast members getting sick (with the notable exception of Assante's and Ward's characters-- they still look like movie stars). And, it works here. It's not so we get disgusted. It works on a human level-- not as a special effects "gross out". We are supposed to be appalled at what radiation can do and we are. Additionally, we see more city scenes-- how the city is changing over the last few months-- we see a quite civilized society change as the end nears. This definitely makes what's happening more believable.

Some people may take issue with the major ending change for Captain Towers and Moira. I do, too, I guess. But, I do think this ending is more believable than the book's ending and is a teeny bit of brightness in an otherwise totally horrific situation.

I wound up watching both this movie and the original within the same two weeks. Honestly, this film was better with the exception of Armand Assante's performance (which was good, but not of Peck's caliber.). Both are worth seeing. If you can take two stories about Armageddon, order both these films.

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On The Beach

I have always liked Armand Assante, and he doesn't disappoint in this movie. It's a very compelling story about the horrors of someone in some country deciding to push the nuke button. Rachael Ward does a good job portraying a maturing hedonist, who as the story unfolds indulges herself in a somewhat complicated love triangle. All in all, the movie is definitely worth watching.

A devastating, though not paralyzing elegy

Originally my intent was to catch the first few minutes of this movie, and then dismiss it and get on with my weekend. After all, how many doomsday movies can you name that didn't leave a bitter taste in your mouth at the sheer lameness of Hollywood's tear-jerking and corner-cutting? How many doomsday movies out of Hollywood manage to make you think? Thankfully, this production had the Australians on board.

The imagined cataclysm, rewritten for the new millennium, was instantly plausible, and then over in a flash, and the movie immediately cuts to the predicament of the USS Charleston's crew. They are as much on edge as the viewer, yet this is one of the stiffest scenes of the movie, and the next few minutes seem to bode very poorly for the plot. There is the temptation to prejudge the movie as a steroidal and grotesquely superficial action flick.

But the plot instantly takes a turn, the tension subsides and is put in perspective, and the movie takes off spectacularly. From then on out, "On the Beach at Night," the Walt Whitman poem whose first stanzas inspired the title of the novel, is an entirely apt metaphor for the subtleties of the story's unfolding. It moves documentary-like, with characters who face a nearly inconceivable collective dilemma, and who only gradually begin to internalize their own exceedingly lonely demise, wherein they must cut themselves off from everyone and everything they once knew.

To be sure, one can still fault the movie later on for a few more scenes that suffer from stiff and monochromatic acting. And there are a few poorly staged scenes too. But the momentary interruptions can almost be counted on one hand: Tower's chance meeting with Moira; a few crew members who can't hide their Aussie accents; Tower's mindlessly growing confidence in their mission; the apparent absence of *any* survivalist movements as they begin their trip north; the scenes of Osborne driving in a Ferrari through post-apocalypse Melbourne, without apparent concern for gun-toting carjackers; a cargo freighter clearly visible in the background when, near the end, Admiral Tower walks the cliffside. All those flaws can be quarantined to particular scenes, and do not take away from the whole.

And indeed, the plausible update to the initial premise is reprised through other plot twists -- notably, the source of the siren-like call of Anchorage, and then the fate of San Francisco. Along the way, even the bit parts turn out to be very well acted.

The movie takes more than a half an hour to wind down, and in so doing takes an enormous risk. But the cast is quiet and reserved, and this production pulls off a long adieu better than any I can remember. There are subtlely jolting touches along the way -- Melbourne radio signing off, a family embracing and tenderly remembering their best moments together, and a home, like the wider world, eternally emptied of all life.

I cannot say that I will find many opportunities to share this movie within my immediate circle. It's certainly not appropriate for kids. It is, all the same, the sort of film that sticks so thoroughly in one's mind that it'll jolt you back to those few hours whenever you chance upon it again.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

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