TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/041789/04178900.027

Text File | 1990-09-17 | 2KB | 36 lines

CINEMA, Page 83

An Unseen Star


    84 CHARLIE MOPIC
    Directed and Written by Patrick Duncan

    We have been soldiering with this lost patrol since we were
kids: the gruff but caring sergeant, preternaturally wise in the
ways of the enemy and the equally hostile terrain; the street
wisecracking kid; the slow-drawling bumpkin; a man called Hammer
and another called Pretty Boy. And, of course, a lieutenant who is
both green and ambitious and therefore more dangerous to friend
than foe. Such characters have been AWOL from most movies about
Viet Nam, and 84 Charlie MoPic would have curiosity value if it
only brought them back and restored them to their chief role:
demonstrating the masculine need for bonding.

    What gives this film a somewhat higher value is the addition
of one new character. "84 Charlie MoPic" is an Army term for a
documentary cameraman, and all of this film was shot on super-16
mm, as if through his lens. But MoPic provides more than the title;
he is responsible for the film's unique point of view. There is no
editing in the formal sense. In the field the cameraman must pan
from face to face to cover a scene and use his zoom for close-ups.
Tracking shots are handheld, often on the run. Sequences end when
the cameraman decides to shut off -- or when he runs out of film.
We see MoPic only fleetingly, when, for laughs or in a final
desperate moment, his comrades turn his camera on him.

    This mostly unseen star is played by Byron Thames, but special
citations must go to Richard Brooks, Nicholas Cascone and Glenn
Morshower, as his most sharply delineated subjects. It is, however,
first-time director Duncan's raw technique that jolts, transforms
and grants powerful immediacy to basically banal material. In these
bland days, more famous directors, operating on bigger budgets, are
not managing to do as well.