I just saw The Great Santini with Robert Duvall for the first time. I had been wanting to see this one for a long time, its been staring at me from my video-store shelf for at least half a year, and I finally got around to it today after renting it at least 3 times before and never watching it. :rolleyes:
I was very interested to see more of Duvall's work after I became familiar with him in the Godfather. This was a very different type of character for him, loud and obnxious, strict and demanding, as opposed to the quiet and reserved Tom Hagen.
I felt like the film and the story had so much potential. A tough Marine Corps seargant returns to his family after a long tour of duty, packs up his wife and 4 kids, and moves them to South Carolina, where he is to be stationed. Emotional stress ensues within the family and within the main character, Bull Meechum, himself.
The film set me up to think it was going to show you Duvall's personality through his training at his new Marine camp, but instead the main focus of the film was his relationship with his family and especially his eldest son, who has just turned 18.
A long and unnecessary subplot is created to show the son forming a friendship with a local black boy, this boy getting into trouble with some racist white people, and then both he and his persecutors end up dead. I felt this whole side story was completely uneccesary.
Duvall, overall, is in excellent form, and he plays the seargant perfectly, as well as realistically as far as I know from expierience with real life Marines. Some of the acting is a bit corny on the supporting actors parts, as theres a number of amateurs here, and the direction is average at best.
The ending, where Duvall dies from a sudden plane crash caused by a mysterious fire on board, seemed forced, kind out of the blue, and cliched. The aftermath is just 15 minutes of mixed emotional signals.
The final scene of the film, where Duvall's son takes the wheel of the family car to drive them to a new house, seems to have been pointing towards showing the viewer how despite the boys attempts to change his father and be different from him, he has ultimately become him.
I may just be searching for meaning in just another throw-away scene, but it seemed like it was there.
Overall, a good peroformance by Duvall, a story with good potential, but the film is hindered by a long uneccesary side story, and a muddled ending.
