Cadence

Plot summary: Charlie Sheen is thrown into an army stockade with a whole gang of brothers, and they need to learn to work together to get through it. Translation: He's the only white guy in the bunch, and if his honky azz messes up, he won't be rollin'.

This underground (hardly any theater time) military movie turns out to be quite a winner. Charlie Sheen is superb, Laurence Fishburne does a great job, and Martin Sheen pulls off a great directorial debut to the big screen (along with a nice acting performance). I was in the army for many years and I could totally relate sometimes how it was to be the white guy trying to fit in. It's a tough situation to capture in film and make work (it's been attempted hundreds of times), but Martin does a very nice job. The 'Chain Gang' song they sing through the movie was so good that I recorded it off the the movie to MP3. My squad once attempted to perform that cadence dance. It was very amusing. 'Gig for Bean' is a quote I used to say all the time. Every once in awhile someone would get it and it would be a classic moment. 3 out of 4 paws on this one. (More reviews at www,warcat,com)

Perhaps, it was my having seen this movie with a bunch of my Army buddies - while in the Army. Or maybe, being a Larry/Laurence Fishburne FANATIC! It could be that I saw this with my heart open and my mind closed...nah, none of the above reasons are why this movie ranks as one of my all-time favorites. It is the camaraderie and class of the relationship that Martin Sheen created with his main characters.

Never have I seen a movie with such honesty and triumph. Truly, I saw the ending before it came...but I didn't care. Isn't that what a GOOD director will do - make you appreciate the movie and not focus on what the end result will be.

The "End of My Journey" rips through me every time I hear it. A great film study on what true friendship is when race is not factored into the equation. 9/10 - And, I know flicks!

Before he became a joke of an awful actor, Sheen did some good roles as a young man. Fishburne and Sheen also are quite good in this.

The directing isn't the best and there are some parts that are padding, but it's overall a good film. Vets will like this film because it captures army life pretty well, its everyday rhythm, its (yes) cadence. Orders, marching, discipline, chow lines, tedious busy work and solders' down time being filled with tedious time wasting like card games.

Most enlisted know someone like the sergeant, Martin Sheen's character. A lifer who has nothing else in life, who sacrificed his family and marriage.

Reading Maltin's summary may steer you away from a film which, after an unpromising beginning, develops into a gripping drama, aided no end by superb acting from the nine very individual players in this film: Charlie Sheen, as the white prisoner incarcerated with five black soldiers in a military stockade, the two very different white guards, and Martin Sheen as the bullying and racist Sergeant who causes the tension to mount as his personal problems drive him to take out his frustrations on his charges. Martin Sheen perhaps gives the weakest, because least believable, characterization. It is Charlie Sheen as the initially wary room mate and the five finely etched black prisoners, all very good in their roles, who forge a memorable dramatic scenario out of their situation. Martin Sheen's sole directorial effort makes the most of the increasingly tense story-line. See it, it's good!

Cadence casts Charlie Sheen as a rebel soldier during the Vietnam era in the tradition of Montgomery Clift as Robert E.Lee Pruitt in From Here To Eternity. The film is also directed by dad Martin Sheen who has a nice role as the stockade sergeant.

Charlie's gone AWOL after his dad died and in a drunken did the stupid thing of hitting an MP. That got him 90 days in the stockade, where all the other prisoners there are black.

Stockade sergeant Martin Sheen is merely a sadist to Charlie. But add the element of racism with the others. He hopes Charlie will be an ally of sorts, But it doesn't work out that way as Charlie more and more sides with his fellow stockade prisoners.

Martin Sheen is a wonder and you won't see one hint of President Josiah Bartlett in this performance. The scenes directed dad between father and son are special.

Others in the cast are Laurence Fishburne and Blu Mankuma among the prisoners.

This is a real good military drama.