The year is 1971. The Vietnam War is still raging, while at a training camp in Louisiana a disparate group of young Americans get their first taste of what the war will be like for them. Roland Bozz, Colin Farrell, is a natural rebel, who refuses to accept the army`s code of discipline. Jim Paxton, Matthew Davis, who has enlisted, wants to be a writer, and he narrates the film for us, the audience. These two very contrasted young men find themselves in the same unit as the thuggish Wilson, Shea Whigham, and the sensitive Miter, Clifton Collins Jr., among others. Training is rigorous and, at times, dangerous...Joel Schumacher is a highly problematic filmmaker whose output to date has, with the exception of Falling Down, been over baked and over-stated. He seems to be attempting something a little more serious with Tigerland, which is inescapably reminiscent of the first half of Stanley Kubrick`s Full Metal Jacket, while the Bozz character invites comparison with the role played by Montgomery Clift in From Here To Eternity. But mention of those two films just underlines how thin Tigerland is. As an examination of the way the Vietnam War was lost, it`s not without interest - and, in the current climate, provides serious food for thought. The inhumanity of the basic training process, the way these young men are moulded, not into fighting machines but into the sort of monsters who would be responsible for the massacre of civilians in Vietnam, should have provided Schumacher with wonderful material. But the characters are pretty cliched, and though the film is visually interesting, with camerawork by Matthew Libatique, who has worked with Darren Aronofsky, you can`t escape the impression of an opportunity missed.
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