Taps review by Jackass Jon

Story Summary

Taps is an excellent movie staring several popular names such as George C. Scott, Timothy Hutton, Tom Cruise and Sean Penn. The story is about a group of military cadets who find out their beloved academy will be shut down so the land it sits on can be developed into a condominium community. The news is crushing to say the least and each student along with the academy's commander vow to save their school at any cost. In trying to do so though, a wild set of events is triggered and you are pulled along for a dramatic ride that really makes you think about how our society has changed over the years and what our values as a society are. The film puts honor and moral judgment on the spot and you see how it effects even the youngest people in several different ways.

DVD features

The movie has just recently been released on DVD (March 5th 2002) and pretty much comes as a plain old movie. It's not feature rich but does offer the audio track in English Surround 4.0, English Dolby Surround, French Mono and subtitles in English and Spanish. The standard mix of trailers, teasers and scene selections are also included but for video, the disk is shipped with only Anamorphic Widescreen (Aspect Ratio 1.85:1).

Analysis

Taps is one of my all time favorite movies. It was originally released in 1981, back when I was a young teenager. The film was exceptionally powerful to me because I was the son of the youngest Drill Instructor in the history of the United States Marine Corps. and I was also deeply involved in the United States Navel Sea Cadet Corps. at the time so along with the raging hormones of an average kid, I had that little bug called Honor running around in my head at the speed of sound. Given that, this dramatic film really hit home hard with a story revolving around what people believe honor and moral judgment are all about. Back then it really had me thinking about how my values were aligned and in truth may have shocked me a little once I evaluated what my beliefs were. At any rate, this is still an excellent film I would recommend to anyone. The acting is good, the story is great and there's no flashy special effects to make it seem totally unrealistic. The circumstances that unfold for the cadets are far out but damn if it couldn't happen in real life, or so it seems... The character development is pretty light but trust me when I say you'll get into their heads and find out what each one of them are really like. George C. Scott plays General Harlan Bache the aging academy commander, Timothy Hutton is Brian Moreland the newly appointed cadet major, Tom Cruise is David Shawn the Red Beret leader and Sean Penn is Alex Dwyer the leader of the mounted cadets and Brian's right hand man and close friend.

Final Thoughts

See this movie if you haven't seen it before. If you did see it in years past, see it again! I watched it tonight with my son for the first time in close to 20 years and it was just as good today as it was back then... And if it doesn't hit you in the gut and make you think about "things" for a few minutes, you missed the entire point of the movie. Watch it again.


9 out of 10 Jackasses
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