Popcorn Reviews With Cybèle: The General's Daughter

By Cybèle Elaine Werts  
CybeleW@aol.com

First  published in the Shelburne News, Shelburne Vermont

Popcorn Kernel Rating (four possible): A really good story and great acting ruined by obligatory nude scenes and kinky sex thrown in to keep things hopping.

It took me a while to review The General’s Daughter because I had such mixed feelings about what the movie was saying, and how it said it. If you are a parent, this is no film for children. It is a good mystery thriller, where the elements are not spelled out as if we were sheep. We get to figure out what’s going on, and this makes the film better than I expected it to be. If you are a cinematography fan, there are some really live violent scenes including a guy being chopped up underwater by a boat propeller and a cat pawing the window and leaving a streak of blood. I admit to loving this kind of stuff. The acting on both John Travolta and James Woods’ parts is excellent, as is the writing. The conversation is well edited and well crafted, a pleasure to hear.

Paul Brenner (John Travolta) is a bad boy military investigator who uses his southern redneck charm when it’s convenient. He’s not so much a "hero," as a guy who is just plain good at his job. Called in to investigate the murder of a general’s daughter, he finds a quagmire of sex, lies, and videotape (if you’ll pardon the expression). While the content is not so original on any basis, the various lines of inquiry are well interwoven, and well represented by Col. Robert Moore (James Woods), a gay officer who is born to be set up. The rape and murder victim has apparently been through a gang rape years before during a military exercise, and has since then been using her sexual power sink her canines into the base boys like a sharp toothed canine with a good grip on your calf.

Here’s the real problem with this film, and it’s a sensitive issue all right. There are more scenes than I want to see of this woman victim in flagrante and tied up, full frontal nudity. Why exactly is this necessary? These are obligatory scenes at their worst, not to mention that there wasn’t any full frontal nudity of men anywhere in the film. Why is it OK for women to be seen this way and not men? The victim also engaged in sadomasochistic sex, playing leather clad dominatrice to hordes of submissive military men. The problem here is not that this kind of sex is wrong, but rather the assumption that rape victims take out their outrage on men by becoming abusive to them. From what I’ve read, most rape victims take the usual female tack and internalize their hatred into depression; it is usually men that act out. Even worse, it portrays the leather and bondage community as a bunch of people who must be doing it because they were abused in some way, as opposed to consenting adults who have chosen a way of life - which is far closer to the truth. These uninformed sex scenes are offensive and ignorant, and I’ll take the risk of saying so here.

So hey, go see the movie for the good stuff, but don’t bring the kids and try like heck to keep your thinking cap on.

Suggested Gustatory Accompaniment: Nothing relevent here, but I like those little candy spots that come on strips of paper like cash register receipts.

Copyright 2000