“Memorial Day”
Year: 2012
Director: Sam Fischer
Stars: Jonathan Bennett, James Cromwell, John Cromwell
Studio: Image Entertainment
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Running Time: 107 Mins.
“Memorial Day” celebrates the dedication, honor and courage that untie the veterans of all wars and generations that have experienced this.
The film mostly takes place in 1993 and tells the story of Kyle, a 13-year-old boy who comes across a chest that contains World War II relics. He convinces his grandfather to share some grueling stories about how he came to have those possessions. Fast forward to the present day, where Kyle is grown up, he discovers the same heartaches and scars on the battlefields of Iraq.
There are some films that you really like to enjoy, but you end up feeling disappointed. That was definitely the case with “Memorial Day”.
I really wanted to like this film with the premise and all, but I couldn’t. Sam Fischer’s direction falls flat and feels uninspired. One of the things that I didn’t like about it, the film feels more like a made for television film. I hate it, when a film feels that way, as at moves at a very slow pace. There were a lot of scenes that just lagged on. After a while, I was starting to feel bored watching this film. When you feel bored watching a drama, I find that you lose your interest in the film very quickly. The other thing that I didn’t like with the direction, the way that he handles the performances. The acting feels one dimensional. Fischer doesn’t let his actors bring personality to their roles. It doesn’t make the characters interesting, instead you feel like you’re bored watching this film. It’s really sad considering you have the talents of James Cromwell at your disposal and he’s given nothing to do here.
The screenplay sadly isn’t much better. Screenwriter Marc Conklin fails at making this story inspirational. One of the main reasons that this story doesn’t work, you’re not interested in the characters. I really wanted to be interested with the main characters, but I wasn’t. The reason for this, the characters were just flat out dull. They felt flat and one-dimensional. When characters are that way, you have a hard time enjoying a film. The other thing that I didn’t like about it, the scenes just went on and on. I know that this film is a drama, but at some point you have to have scenes that get your interest. You don’t get that here. I wished, Conklin spend more time developing the main characters and the relationship. It would have been more of a better story there.
This was one of those films that I hate writing a bad review for, because I like war movies that deal with the soldiers and how war affects them personally. “Memorial Day” is a film that I wished was a whole lot better than what I saw.
Review Rating: Two Stars
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