Tigerland

• Cert:
• Cat.no: 21708 DVD
• Running time: 96 minutes
• Year: 2000
• Pressing: 2002
• Region(s): 2, PAL
• Chapters: 15 plus extras
• Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
• Languages: English
• Subtitles: 14 languages available
• Widescreen: 1.85:1
• 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
• Macrovision: Yes
• Disc Format: DVD 9
• Price: £19.99
• Extras: Trailer, TV Spots, Colin Farrell’s Screen Tests, Featurette,Director’s Commentary

Director:

Joel Schumacher

(8MM, Bad Company, Batman And Robin, Batman Forever, Chasing the Dragon, The Client, Cousins, Dying Young, Falling Down, Flawless, The Lost Boys, Phone Booth, St. Elmo’s Fire, Tigerland, A Time To Kill)

Producer:

Screenplay:

Music:

Cast:

Private Roland Bozz: Colin Farrell
Private Jim “Pax” Paxton: Matthew Davis
Miter: Clifton Collins Jr.
Cantwell: Thomas Guiry
Private Wilson: Shea Whigham
Private Johnson: Russell Richardson
Captain Saunders: Nick Searcy
Sergeant Erza Landers: Aferno Omilami
Sergeant Thomas: James MacDonald

Tigerlandis the place the army deems the second worst place on Earth. The film followsa group of army recruits as they go through Advanced Infantry Training at FortPolk, Louisiana, of which the film title is the ground’s nickname. Set inSeptember 1971, it is the last stop the men will face before they reach beforeVietnam.

Despite the occasionally interesting direction with a hand-held camera, oftenshot slightly shaky on purpose, by Joel Schumacher, the film isn’t halfas enticing as I thought it would be. Perhaps I’ve seen enough war movies andHollywood has made enough Vietnam films, but continuing to centralise onindividual sections of the war no matter how small?

Either way, it gets very samey very quickly with the same stories played outthat we’ve seen before: over-zealous sergeants (James MacDonald asSergeant Thomas), their snotty superior (Nick Searcy as Captain Saunders),a weedy recruit who gets picked on (Clifton Collins Jr. as Miter),a boisterous leader (Colin Farrell as Bozz) and his cocky best friendMatthew Davis as Paxton) as well as the old favourites thrown in forgood measure such as weekend passes and shagging loose women.

The Tigerland team.

The film is presented in the original 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen ratioand has an intentionally-gritty look, but despite that I can still tellprint flecks when I see them and parts of this one have more drop-outs thanthey should.

The sound is reasonable, but apart from a couple of shoot-outs that mightuse the Dolby Digital 5.1 soundstage, most of the time it’s only for ambience.

The extras consist of a 2½-minute 4:3 trailer, two 30-second TV spots with a deep voiceannouncer, a standard 4-minute featurette which mixes 4:3 film clips with chat fromcast and crew members, Colin Farrell’s casting sessions – totalling aroundsix minutes and a director’s commentary.

The menus are static and silent, there are just 15 chapters to the film,but the subtitles come in 14 flavours: English for the hard of hearing as well asCzech, Danish, Finnish, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Norwegian, Polish,Portuguese, Swedish, French, Dutch and Greek.

FILM CONTENT
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS


OVERALL