Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (2016) - Yea, Long And Boring!

★★☆☆☆

The first film I checked out this year is a relatively old one from last year. BLHW, Ang Lee’s latest, tells how weird Billy Lynn, a solider just back from the War in Iraq, feels to be honored for the worst day of his life when he literally has to kill to survive but still fails to save his comrade’s life. Apart from its technical achievement (shot at 48 fps), the film’s indeed pretty boring! It focuses more on psychoanalysis of the characters than gruesome nature of the battlefield yet I don’t get to feel what they feel anyhow. If you take it a war drama, there’s nothing dramatic or emotional. If you take it a war action, there’s nothing mind-blowing to see. If it’s supposed to make me feel their pain and struggles, I don’t!

The film reminds me of ‘The Hurt Locker’, another war film that has, I guess, a better insight into a helpless and pathetic situation where a solider has no choice but to go back to the dangerous battlefield again and again since that’s the only place he can seem to find a sense of belonging, and to feel useful! What seems so sad is that wars can actually turn you into sort of an addict and a psychosis. That once you fall into that sick mental state, there’s basically no way you can make you way back to normal!

Speaking of wars, I used to think the Jap should make an official apology to us for the war crimes they committed in China during WWII. But now I guess no one should apologize to anyone for anything because you know both sides were just doing what they had to do back then. And it was nothing right or wrong. They were but victims of the war! Simple as that!