GODS AND GENERALS

By: MICHAEL TUNISON
Review Date: Friday, February 21, 2003

Bull Run... Fredericksburg... Chancellorsville... If the mere mention of those names doesn't send a cold shiver down your spine, you probably aren't the primary audience for the Civil War epic GODS AND GENERALS. While most Hollywood efforts of this kind use history as window-dressing for reworking standard heroic story formulas, screenwriter-director Ronald F. Maxwell's prequel to his acclaimed 1993 TV movie GETTYSBURG instead attempts to put the great and terrible events depicted at center stage. The resulting 3 ¾-hour, meticulously researched and staged film is likely to delight Civil War buffs and put off more mainstream viewers to equal degrees.

Based on the novel by Jeffrey M. Shaara (son of the late Michael Shaara, whose Pulitzer Prize-winning KILLER ANGELS provided the basis for Maxwell's GETTYSBURG), GODS AND GENERALS is a sprawling recreation of the first couple of years of the war from the painful secession of the Southern states at the conflict's onset through the remarkable series of campaigns out-manned and out-gunned Confederate army commander Gen. Robert E. Lee waged prior to his pivotal defeat at Gettysburg in the summer of 1863.

While the film isn't constructed around a single protagonist or point of view quite the opposite, in fact the dominant character in terms of screen time is Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson (Stephen Lang), the pious Virginia Military Institute instructor who led his Stonewall Brigade through a series of legendary actions as Lee's "right hand" in the early part of the war. A parallel story strand follows Lee himself (Robert Duvall) after his fateful decision to place his loyalty to his native Virginia above his oath to defend the Union. Representing the Yankee perspective in some of the same battles, Jeff Daniels reprises his acclaimed GETTYSBURG role as Col. Joshua Chamberlain, an idealistic college professor from Maine getting his first experiences at soldiering during this period.

As he did with GETTYSBURG, Maxwell loads GODS AND GENERALS with so much convincing historical detail that the viewer feels due at least a couple of college credits by the time the nearly four-hour experience of watching the film is completed (a 12-minute intermission acknowledges the capacity of the average human bladder). We delve much deeper into strategic nuances than we're accustomed to in such movies, while also feeling something of the horror soldiers went through in moments such as a memorable sequence in which Chamberlain and others crawl from corpse to corpse on a nighttime battlefield, using their fallen comrades as cover from the bullets zinging by. Even more unusually for a feature film, we get a sense of the terrain and the armies' positions on it as they maneuver. Like GETTYSBURG, GODS AND GENERALS went to the trouble of filming at or near many of the actual historic locations, a commitment to realism that is probably enough in itself to endear the film to the metal detector-sweeping, battle-reenacting Civil War nuts out there.

Unfortunately for

the more typical American cineplex-goer (who, let's be honest, might be hard-pressed to tell you which side won the Civil War), GODS' dramatic core just isn't compelling enough to keep non-history buffs emotionally involved over the course of such a long film. While all three leading men give strong performances, none of the main characters has much room to develop once established. Lang (who also appeared memorably in GETTYSBURG as Gen. George Pickett, somewhat confusingly played by another actor in GODS AND GENERALS) infuses the God-fearing Jackson with a wonderful sense of humility in the face of war's terrors, but there's only so much he can do with a character whose spiritual acceptance of whatever happens to him cannot be shaken. The film's Jackson is pretty much doubt-free and thus conflict-free which is great for him, but not so great for the story's dramatic impact.

The incomparable Duvall is certainly dream casting for Lee, but GODS' script actually gives him a smaller and less interesting part than Martin Sheen's Lee in GETTYSBURG. Daniels likewise has less to do this time around as Chamberlain, who didn't play a big role in any of the battles depicted in GODS though he does have a fine "leaving for the wars" scene with his wife, touchingly portrayed by Mira Sorvino. (The surprisingly small amount of screen time for Daniels may have something to do with the decision to completely cut out a section of the film dealing with the Battle of Antietam, at which Chamberlain served. Press materials indicate the Antietam sequences will be included in the film's DVD release).

GODS' broader scope allows it to expand on the philosophical issues examined in GETTYSBURG, including the conflicted feelings certain characters have toward the Confederacy and slavery. Providing balancing views of the latter are two African American characters a household servant in Fredericksburg (Donzaleigh Abernathy) and a cook (Frankie Faison) traveling with Jackson who remain loyal to their white Southern masters, but don't pass up opportunities to express their longing for freedom once the war is over.

Happily, Maxwell has used his substantially larger budget to step up the production values on GODS, which has a much more impressive look and feel than the made-for-TV GETTYSBURG. More elaborate special effects allow for everything from a soldier literally getting blown to bits by a cannonball to digitally created establishing shots of the towns where the battles take place. There's even a pair of new Bob Dylan compositions on the soundtrack a coup that probably guarantees the filmmakers at least one Oscar nomination out of the gate.

While titles at the end of the film optimistically look forward to completing the trilogy with an adaptation of Jeffrey Shaara's novel THE LAST FULL MEASURE, the idea of producing GODS AND GENERALS as a big-budget feature seems an extraordinary gamble by executive producer Ted Turner (who somewhat surreally pops up for a cameo as a Confederate colonel). The three-hour, 49-minute running time will be daunting even to audiences softened up by THE LORD OF THE RINGS, and one wonders exactly which demographic of moviegoers aside from the History Channel set they're expecting to sit through to the end of this sometimes lumbering and unfocused opus. Leave it to a couple of Southern boys like Shaara and Turner to go down fighting gallantly for what may ultimately prove a lost cause.

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