Lynn.b of our Hollywood Preview crew, went to a screening of a new romantic action film. Here's the scoop on:

PEARL HARBOR

In Hawaii, a young mother hangs her wash on the line, kids play baseball. They look up and military planes, so low that people on the ground could almost touch their underbellies, fly overhead. It's shocking and exciting but no one is afraid until they see that the pilots aren't American and they are waving to the kids to run and hide. This is the beginning of the "day that will live in infamy", the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Farm boy friends Rafe McCawley (Ben Affleck) and Danny Walker (Josh Hartnett) grew up in the American heartland flying cropdusters. As young men they become Army Airforce pilots. In New York, Rafe meets Navy nurse Evelyn Johnson (Kate Beckinsale) and falls hard. World War II in Europe draws hotshot pilot Rafe to enlist in an American unit of the British Air Force and Evelyn is heartbroken. She and Danny are both transferred to "paradise", Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

Meanwhile, the Japanese are suffering from an American embargo on oil. They realize that they must do something drastic before oil runs out. President Roosevelt (Jon Voight) continues peace talks while the Japanese plan a secret attack. In the European war, Rafe becomes a flying ace but is shot down and assumed dead. Months later, grief-stricken Evelyn and Danny come together in their sorrow and become a couple. When Rafe, who had been rescued and was recovering in France, returns, the two friends, in love with the same woman, come to blows.

When the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, in a totally successful sneak attack, Rafe and Danny must put aside their differences and join forces to do what they can to fight back. Evelyn must suddenly become a front line combat nurse and deal with dying men and a lack of supplies. Months later, Rafe has made peace with the Evelyn/Danny relationship and he and Danny are ordered to join Colonel James Doolittle's (Alec Baldwin) unit of B-25 fliers who will make the first raid off an aircraft carrier on Tokyo. Through this final ordeal, lives are changed forever.
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In this granddaddy of Top Gun, we again have hotshot pilots only, this time they are making their first attempts ever at flying a big B-25 off the deck of a ship. Affleck and Hartnett are believable good ole boys and the buddy humor works well but the love triangle story is predictable. Affleck and Beckinsale don't have the heat of Titanic's DiCaprio and Winslett. The dialogue is sappy and melodramatic at times (one is reminded of that famous Casablanca wartime line "It's easy to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world".) There are no surprises in this film (if you've ever read a history book or seen a war film) but precisely because this really happened to many of our grandparents or even great grandparents, we watch in awe and with respect.

Watching picture perfect nurse Evelyn, who has never seen a war wound, suddenly have to choose who is treatable and who dies by marking the foreheads of horribly wounded men with her lipstick is an image that sticks with you. The actual bombing is well-edited and, with the aid of modern computer effects, terrifying. You become totally absorbed watching these huge battleships, turn on side and sink in mere minutes, trapping thousands of men inside and you root for sailor Cuba Gooding, who has never fired a gun before, as he goes ballistic on the deck of a sinking battleship and tries to shoot down as many Japanese zeros as he can.

World War II was the last war in which Americans felt truly justified, patriotic and "one" with the war effort. After Pearl Harbor, there didn't need to be a draft. Everyone stampeded to volunteer. This film shows you why. Whether the film works on all levels is irrelevant. If you just want to see "hotties" Affleck and Hartnett, fine. You must see this film if for no other reason than to understand the spirit that built the America we live in today.

Directed by	Michael Bay (Armageddon)
Screenplay by	Randall Wallace (Braveheart)
Starring	Ben Affleck as Rafe McCawley
	Josh Hartnett as Danny Walker
	Kate Beckinsale as Evelyn Johnson
	Alec Baldwin as Jimmy Doolittle
	Cuba Gooding, Jr. as Dorie Miller
	Jon Voight as President Roosevelt