Review: Sayles' 'Men With Guns' well-intentioned but tedious

'Men With Guns': Courage, decency, tedium

April 1, 1998
Web posted at: 11:20 p.m. EST (0420 GMT)

From Reviewer Paul Tatara

(CNN) -- In her New York Times review of John Sayles' new movie, a Latin American guerrilla tragedy called "Men With Guns," Janet Maslin echoes the sentiments of a great many film critics when she writes that Sayles is "the most courageous and decent storyteller working in American films today."

I couldn't agree more with that assessment, but there's a question that nobody seems to want to ask when considering Sayles' consistently dignified output -- namely, are courage and decency really all that's required to make a successful film?

John Sayles

"Men With Guns" is yet another well-intentioned but tedious essay by Sayles suggesting that the answer to that question, as much as I hate to say it, is "no." I'm not surprised by the movie's honorable failure, though. Sayles' somber tone and snail's pace, in my opinion, have sunk several of his previous films and even a couple of the music videos he's directed for Bruce Springsteen.

I'm obsessive enough about the sport to have written a baseball screenplay of my own, but I'd rather take a beating than sit through Sayles' "Eight Men Out" again, and the grinding repetition in "Matewan" is enough to make me scream.

Sayles' heart is always in the right place, and his continuing insistence on remaining free of a major studio's imperceptive reigns is nearly heroic, but you can't escape the fact that his movies (with a couple of exceptions) unspool with all the gusto of water swirling down a partially clogged bathtub drain.

Sayles himself has been quoted as saying, "My main interest is making films about people. I'm not interested in cinematic art." Well, if that's your criteria, then "Men With Guns" is an unqualified success.

The only problem is that movies are not Peace Corps pamphlets. They require a sense of pacing that can draw the audience in, and dialogue that sounds like it's coming from actual human beings, rather than writerly constructs who know and believe exactly what they need to know and believe in order to keep the story crawling ahead. That's where "Men With Guns," for all its nobility, fails miserably.

The story takes place in an unnamed country. The protagonist, Dr. Humberto Fuentes (Federico Luppi), is a well-to-do physician who's shown in the opening scenes administering to an Army general and an assortment of wealthy socialites.

Fuentes has begun to question his lot in life and wonders (for what seems to be the very first time) what has happened to the young students he trained to practice medicine in the poor, overgrown hills of his country. He decides, against the advice of several intelligent people, to journey into those hills and find them.

Never mind that the country is crawling with violently menacing guerrillas and just as violent government troops. This is a doctor who evidently has never seen what men with guns are capable of. He also seems to have never read a magazine, turned on a radio, or talked to another politically aware person, a fact that grows more and more infuriating as the movie unfolds.

As he wanders the countryside, slowly growing aware of the brutality that's been holding the poorest people of his country down, Fuentes collects a rag-tag team of travelers, all of whom either spend their time pontificating about the confusing (and never properly explained) political situation, or "poetically" wallowing in the morbid plight of their people.

There's a young boy named Conejo (Dan Rivera Gonzalez) who recounts endless tales of starvation and torture, an Army deserter named Domingo (Damian Delgado) who lives by the fearsome code of the "men with guns," and a now-faithless former priest (Damian Alcazar) who, in the movie's only well-paced and moving sequence, describes the horror that once visited his village.

There's lots and lots of talking, and the subject matter, no matter how horrific, eventually grows tiresome and repetitive. Frankly, the point is made in the first hour or so, then you just have to sit it out, craving an espresso that might keep you awake.

This, as I've already said, is presented with the utmost taste, but Sayles stumbles badly when trying to convey the thoughtlessness that outsiders bring to this tumultuous situation. That angle is covered by Mandy Patinkin and Kathryn Grody, as American tourists who happen upon Fuentes a couple of times during the film.

They're dressed like Midwestern rubes heading to Disney World, and seem to perceive the torture and bloodshed as the next best thing to Space Mountain. At one point Patinkin even disappointedly asks Fuentes why they don't have fajitas in his country. Bluntness is one thing, but this is cheap writing, and Sayles is capable of much more.

I wish I could say that "Men With Guns" is worth your time (considering the dreck that I usually have to watch, I really wish I could say it), but, alas good intentions do not always pay off. It is possible, after all, to be intelligent, virtuous, and boring as hell.

"Men With Guns" contains many tales of horrible violence and torture. We see the aftermath of some of these events, but Sayles thankfully keeps the gore to a minimum. Rated R. 128 minutes, and that's too long.

Related stories:

• John Sayles throws fans a curve with 'Men With Guns' - March
• 'Mimic' not for the roach-sensitive - August 22, 1997
• Sayles: unconventional, unpredictable storyteller - July 5, 1996

Related site:

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• Men with Guns (official movie site)
• Internet Movie Database - John Sayles

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