Streamers

Following on the heels of "Come Back to the Five & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean", Altman brings another play to the screen. Like the earlier movie, this is an intensely serious drama about issues of sexuality and denial. Like the earlier movie, parts of it are extremely strident and/or "stagy", and like the earlier movie, much of it is redeemed by the excellent performances.

Although set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, the film is mostly about what goes on inside the heads of a small group of soldiers who are waiting to get shipped out. Much of the story's development is psychological, and not related to the specific period in history... if anything, the characters occasionally seem "too modern", but it's impossible for me to say whether this is actually the case (perhaps done intentionally by the director and screenwriter) or whether my impression of how they "should" have been behaving in the mid-1960s is colored too much by mass-media images from that time.

In any case, Altman and screenwriter David Rabe do a good job of confounding the audience's expectations and providing us with multi-faceted, complex characters, and there are some moments of chilling beauty, as when two older sergeants tell stories of paratroopers who didn't make it. While the issues involved and the serious tone will probably turn a lot of people off, this is a "worthy" member of the Altman canon, and well worth seeking out by anyone who is interested in his "filmed plays" of the 80s or in seeing him work on a small scale.

I agree with some other reviewers that the huge flaw in this movie is the script. Maybe in live theatre this dialog is compelling, but on screen it is just bombastic. The highly formal and eloquent prose is beautiful writing, but it keeps the characters from coming alive. Nobody anywhere talks like these characters.

This could have been a powerful movie about important issues that I happen to care about a lot; it comes across instead as an acting exercise, in which very talented actors carefully read expertly crafted lines. The direction is great, as it is in every Altman movie, but I wish he had not stayed so close to the play. He usually trusted his actors more than the scripts, and not doing so in this movie was a mistake.

I first saw this film when I was 15, and was pretty wowed by it, especially it's high level use of the F word. Just recently watching it again, there wasn't that much bad language. Later discovering this was a Robert Altman film, this didn't surprise me, as he did another set piece one, continual scene film, 'Come Back To The Five And Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean' at the same time. There is actually a preview of the latter on this film, if you have a VHS copy, which I luckily do. Streamers works mainly cause of the powerful performances, notably Michael Wright, what you may call a deserter, off his nut, who crashes a dorm of Vets, still waiting on their orders to fight that notorious and unforgotten war. He's so powerfully unsettling, because you don't what he'' do next. It's like watching a bi polar patient. The other notable performance is that of Guy Boyd, a great underused actor, as a gung ho sergeant, who sadly, you don't see much of him in this, either. Modine is very strong too as Wright's rival, while Mitchell Lichstein is unforgettably great as the gay homo cadet, who brings so much to the role, an array of emotions. What happened to him? Streamers is basically a character driven, one scene movie, where the tenseness and anxiousness shows in these pre Vet soldiers, one young kid, slashing his wrists at the start, to get a pardon, with one of the creepiest faces I've ever seen. If part of this character, I give the actor full credit. David Allen Grier, a good underrated actor plays another black GI, and Wright's friend. The atmosphere of these actors, doing their thing in a confined set is electric, even the smaller performances as we near it's end, after a double tragedy were great. The films not for everyone, as there are some confronting issues, in what in a pull no punches tale of innocence lost, and tempers flaring of a bunch of apprehensive soldiers, waiting to partake in that ugly war. The highpoint is watching a drunk Guy Boyd (and he's like this for all his scenes) singing instead of Beautiful Dreamer, Beautiful Streamers. George Dzunda, delivers too, especially near the end as Boyd's compadre. The marching gun display in perfect cadence at the start and end credits in frighteningly unsurpassable. Engaging viewing, where if not for the actors, this dorm would coming down.

Every crisis is a fight's form. And the crisis is the only way to know that you are alive. "Streamers" is tale about Vietnam, self discover, fear and sentiments. About trust and friendship. About intolerance's power. And about the resistance in face of same other reality. The homoerotic aspect is only an ingredient in this great expectation and heavy uncertainty. Four boys and a war. And the struggle to adjust the news rules at the familiar past. The threat is not the war or the death. Not the superiors or the others soldiers. The threat is only your person. Each gesture, each emotion, each word may change not an opinion, a nuance in the attitude/words of the other, the self respect or the values of your life but your soul. The world is your desire's projection. And if this these is fallacious? A movie about a interior world- gift and cross.

There's a fair amount to like about this film but in the end it is kept too close to a stage play to fully live on its own. The acting-normally a strength for Altman-is just slightly too large, pitched for the camera and the overall production suffers from this. Only Mitchell Lichtenstein seems to play Richie for the camera and not the cheap seats in the back. (it helps that Richie is the most compelling character). Worst of all Altman-opening and closing segments aside-does little to separate this from a filmed play. His other 80's work found a cinematic motif to lean into and kept cinema alive-i.e. the monitors in Secret Honor, the mirror flashbacks in Come Back to the Five and Dime...etc. And the film ends up feeling quite stilted.

Some of this stilted vibe is the text of the play. It is exceptionally didactic and angry. I am not even sure if all the character beats make psychological sense because the characters seemed to be forced into the situations to comment on the US war on Vietnam. I am not thrilled with the film's treatment of gayness, or homophobia as well but some this is dated.

I do like really like the opening and closing...it is striking and sets the umm stage well for the tone of the film. The film has weird resonance with M*A*S*H as well. Streamers takes the protest elements of that film along with taking the military down a peg but removes the fun and gallows humor.

I'm glad I saw this-it isn't boring which is more than I can say for truly bad films.