Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Too much unresolved emoting, but thought provoking drama., May 15, 2005
If you're a fan of Wil Wheaton, this is one of his biggest, best roles. It's a drama about 5 prep boys debating weather to join up after Pearl Harbor. The whole thing takes place during one night, December 8th 1941. Wheaton is taking a pacifist position, putting his best friendship with a patriot at risk. These boys seem to have a new emotional crisis in every scene, and unfortunately that makes their competent acting seem a bit over the top, and about halfway through the film it loses it's effect. However, you'll probably like December if you liked all of the following movies, even if it isn't as good as any of them: Stand By Me, Toy Soldiers, Dead Poet's Society, and The Emperor's Club. Of course they never do resolve who is right, or even tell what happens to any of them in the war; but they raise thought-provoking issues, such as can friendship survive diametric positions of patirot vs. pacifist.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Neopatriotism in a War Film, April 15, 2007
I wish we had more movies like these. It's a movie based on a tragic event that happened decades ago, but with a modern inflection. Unlike, the agitprop trying to be charmed into mainstream, this film is democratically correct. Cinematographically, it's studio style is commensurable with the emotional tone or "mise en scene" of German psychological thrillers, yet the storyline's characteristics are in tune with American philosophic points of view, as far as Western Civilizations goes. At first, I wasn't enjoying the film, but then surprising scenes made me stop and think. Now, I'm watching it every chance I get. (It's had a fecund affect on me.) There is a sense of diplomacy and comprehension that unfortunately skips a generation. This movie builds; not destroys. You have to see the movie up to the very end to understand how sound the moral is. It decently portrays man as a fully rational being. If it weren't for the profanity, I'd say that this film is adherent to the Logos.
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2.0 out of 5 stars
Be Forewarned, March 6, 2009
This may be a great movie. It may not. I never found out because about 20 minutes into it the extreme profanity forced me to turn it off.
It is unlikely that five seemingly respectable young men in a high-end prep school in 1941 would swear so flippantly and constantly as these young men do. I think it was very unnecessary for the screen-writers to incorporate such language and tarnish a potentially good movie.
But, if you can stomach d-, h-, sh- and the like about every 15 seconds, by all means. Watch this movie. It might be an otherwise great movie depicting the civilian reaction to the attack on Pearl Harbor, but be forewarned, it is NOT a family movie, and it does NOT deserve the PG rating.
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