The General's Daughter

The General's Daughter - R (Paramount Pictures)

Everyone loves a good thriller and this is exactly what you'll get out of The General's Daughter. I was surprised to find that this film had quite a few negative reviews. I truly thought that this was a well thought out, well filmed, and well acted picture. 

The whole plot of the story was decent enough, having been adapted from a novel. The plot is one of those "the government can do anything they want" films, which I typically don't care for, but the characters were presented in such a way that it made up for the government cover-up story line. All characters were well developed when they needed to be and the actors did a great job with each one. The screenplay was okay; dialogue was a little dodgy at some points, but was original and flowed together well. I especially like the style in which the thriller was filmed. Whether the director used a filter on the cameras or just had the scenes lighted in a certain way, the lighting was incredibly good and did set the mysterious, cover-up tone for the film. There are overt messages being sent to the audience which, for me, takes away from the movie if the audience can clearly and plainly see what the writer wanted them to see. I, personally, am fond of movies, especially thrillers, in which the sub-message has to be searched for. The obvious innuendos toward sexism become a little too much and, at times, very insulting (that may have been what they were going for). The twists at the conclusion of the film seemed a bit over the top, but overall the story and actors held my interest the whole way through. 

The actors did great. I was a little hesitant towards John Travolta at the beginning, but that quickly went away. Madeleine Stowe was also well qualified and did a great job as Travolta's opposite. I was happy to see that the possible romance between them was excluded; I don't think that a romance would have helped the plot in any way. James Woods was especially good as well as James Cromwell who did an excellent job as General Joe Campbell. Leslie Stefanson was great for what she did do in the film as an incredibly troubled soldier. All in all, the actors carried the film well and definitely did a fine job. No one was bad, and a few actors clearly stood out as good.

Not much to say... As I said, the sub-messages were a bit too overt for me and some of the drama was a bit overly dramactic, but the whole thriller was well developed with a great ending and well carried out by the actors, producers, director, and editors. Overall a great film that I would definitely recommend. 

Rating:

**** out of 5

Trailer for The General's Daughter