By Peter Calder
THE GENERAL'S DAUGHTER
* *
Cast: John Travolta, Madeleine Stowe, Timothy Hutton, James Woods
Director: Simon West
Rating: R16
The bestseller by Nelson De Mille, on which this plodding and rather distasteful thriller is based, was, according to some reports, a thinly disguised piece of propaganda against women in the military.
The army is a life of men among men, runs the argument, and women are a form of moral corruption.
As a defence against a charge of gang rape, this line of reasoning has the distinction of originality, but this supposed subtext is not plainly discernible in the script (the writing credits include the veteran William Goldman although some reports had as many as six writers).
What we have instead is a humdrum detective story about a murder at Fort McCallum, a southern army base in which the corpse is a woman who has been pegged out on the parade ground after (or before) having been tortured, raped and strangled. Oh, and she just happens to be the daughter of the base's commanding officer.
In a performance which tries to be genial but mostly looks sloppy, Travolta is the military policeman assigned to the case and, unsurprisingly, cracks open a seam of secrecy running right to the top.
The zinger twist that his sidekick investigator (Stowe) is an old flame contributes towards an engaging set-up. But under the helming hand of West, whose debut feature was the ludicrously overblown Con Air, it never gets going.
The visual flourishes are workmanlike and competent (though lingering shots panning over the battered victim are uncomfortably graphic) and there's some snappy dialogue. (James Woods, admitting he doesn't have an alibi, asks: "Does that make me a murderer?" Travolta shoots back: "No, it just makes you lonely and unpopular.")
But it all unfolds with a leaden sort of predictability and is a less-than-distinguished addition to a crowded genre.
