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The Pen is Mightier Than the Sword

The Last Samurai Script Review

Three years ago, John Logan brought us what the Academy considered the “best picture” of 2000, the Russell Crowe epic Gladiator. Logan followed up the script a year later (dated May 18th, 2001) with another epic starring another action star, Tom Cruise. This time the result is a vast improvement over it’s predecessor and it takes the form of a Kurosawa homage entitled The Last Samurai. Samurai, like Gladiator, blends historic events with drama and carnage. However, this one might actually deserve the title of “best picture” come next winter.

The screenplay begins with a piece of dialogue whose style is reminiscent of Arthur Golden’s best selling novel Memoirs of a Geisha in which a narrator describes Japan poetically. The voice over, provided by an English translator for the Japanese prince, reads:

GRAHAM (V.O.)

They say Japan was made by a sword...

They say the old gods dipped a coral sword into the ocean,

and when they pulled it out, four perfect drops

fell back into the sea. They say those drops became the

four islands of Japan.

I say the real Japan was made by a handful of brave

men: warriors willing to fight and die because they

believed in what seems to have become a forgotten

word...

Honor.

However, instead of becoming immediately engrossed in Japan, Logan juxipositions the dialogue with the image of the American flag, hanging over a convention hall on America’s centennial. Here we are introduced to Captain Algren (Tom Cruise), a Civil War “hero” who witnessed the massacre of his troops following a botched command. To escape his guilt, which he shares with no one, Algren escapes into a world of opium and liquor. He has sold his image to Winchester rifles, marketing firearms using his heroic image because the public does not know what truly happened during the battle. Algren’s Calvary unit was demolished by a new wave of weapons: Gatling guns.

This mirrors the same situation brewing in Japan, where the Prince hires Algren to become the country’s military advisor during it’s modernization period. The war is being led against the samurai, the last remnants of Japan’s past and the only variable keeping them from the future. However, Algren is captured during a lethal skirmish and taken to the mountain regions, which the samurai inhabit. He quickly becomes accustomed to their ways and befriends Katsumoto, the leader of the samurai, and Yoritomo, the samurai entrusted to care of Algren during his stay. Soon, Algren begins to wonder if he is fighting for the wrong side and takes up a sword for the respected heroes.

What Logan does perfectly in this screenplay is blends action sequences with historical drama. While his attempts at this failed in Gladiator, he seems to be evaluating his mistakes and using them to his advantage in this screenplay. We are hit with basically three battle sequences: the first being the skirmish in which Algren is taken captive, the second being an attempt on Katsumoto’s life, and the third being the grand finale, a battle between the samurai and the Japanese military which mirrors Algren’s haunting memories.

Not only has Logan’s understanding of letting characters motivate the action improved but his understanding of characters has also evolved. Instead of drowning Algren and his friends in the cliches he doomed Maximus to in Gladiator, Logan seems to have used some restraint and turned Algren into a tortured warrior. The only other example of this executed so well is in Coppola’s Willard character in Apocalypse Now. Not only is this going to be possibly Cruise’s best role, but I have a feeling it will grab him an Oscar. Also, the villains of Samurai aren’t drenched in cliche like Gladiator was. They actually have strong motives and convictions that make sense in the parameters of the environment Logan skillfully constructs. Judging from the screenplay and the creative powers behind it, The Last Samurai is already looking to be one of the best films of the new year.

(Review submitted by Drew Morton)

Jean-François Allaire (aka DeadPool)

Questions, comments, praise etc. Email me at deadpool@tnmc.org

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Jean-François Allaire is TNMC's first columnist. At only 24 years old he has become a respected entertainment journalist, with his columns appearing in Corona's Coming Attractions and Scr(i)pt magazine. He also writes a monthly column in Screenwriters Monthly entitled 'The Last Word.' Hailing from Montreal this young writer is determined to dig up all the details on the movies before they hit your local theater. If you're part of a movie production then you really need to be talking to him.