Bad acting in WHEN TRUMPETS FADE
-
Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Dwight Yoakam
jeffyoung1 — 17 years ago(March 18, 2009 01:10 AM)
Dwight Y. might be many things, especially as a talented singer, but I didn't like his character as a U.S. Army battalion commander in the 1998 World War II drama, WHEN TRUMPETS FADE, which took place in the bloody meatgrinder battle for the Hurtgen Forest.
While Martin Donovan was spot on in a completely believable role as the unlucky beleagered company commander captain, Dwight Y.'s lieutenant colonel portrayal was stilted and almost cartoonish. At a few times Dwight seemed to be reciting his lines instead of emoting them.
One scene has Dwight Y. as the LTC relieving Captain Pritchard (Donovan) of company command, telling him, "This discussion is over the moment it started". I cringed at the way he spoke the line and more I hated it because that's how sometimes higher ranking U.S. Army and Marine officers talk down to their subordinates and enlisted men in real life. In your mind, you struggle not to respond, 'you're such an ass.' to such arrogant garbage. In the military everyone has to take orders, especially unpleasant ones. But for heaven's sake, show some moral courage by opposing decisions to send innocent men into meatgrinders, a certain death. That's how the Soviets managed their soldiers in WWII and even though they won, they incurred millions of unnecessary combat deaths.