Pearl Harbor (2001)

Director:

Michael Bay

Writer (WGA):

Randall Wallace (written by)

Release Date:

25 May 2001 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Romance | War

Tagline:

It takes a moment to change history. It takes love to change lives.

Plot:

Pearl Harbor follows the story of two best friends, Rafe and Danny, and their love lives as they go off to join the war.

Plot Keywords:

Pearl Harbor | Friend | Best Friend | Nurse | Pilot

Awards:

Won Oscar. Another 10 wins & 34 nominations

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

Ben Affleck	...	Capt. Rafe McCawley
Josh Hartnett	...	Capt. Danny Walker
Kate Beckinsale	...	Nurse Lt. Evelyn Johnson
Cuba Gooding Jr.	...	Petty Officer Doris Miller
Jon Voight	...	President Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Alec Baldwin	...	Lt. Col. James Doolittle
Tom Sizemore	...	Sgt. Earl Sistern
William Lee Scott	...	Lt. Billy Thompson
Greg Zola	...	Lt. Anthony Fusco
Ewen Bremner	...	Lt. Red Winkle
Jaime King	...	Nurse Betty Bayer (as James King)
Catherine Kellner	...	Nurse Barbara
Jennifer Garner	...	Nurse Sandra
Sara Rue	...	Nurse Martha
Michael Shannon	...	Lt. Gooz Wood

Also Known As:

Pearl Harbour (UK) (promotional title)
Tennessee (USA) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for sustained intense war sequences, images of wounded, brief sensuality and some language.

Runtime:

183 min | USA:184 min (director's cut)

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Japanese | French

Color:

Black and White (archive footage) | Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.20 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS-8 (one 70 mm print for Tokyo Dome, Japan) | DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS (8 channels)

Certification:

Taiwan:PG-12 | Canada:14 (Nova Scotia) | Canada:14A (British Columbia) | Canada:AA (Ontario) | Canada:G (Quebec) | Canada:PA (Manitoba) | Canada:PG (Alberta) | Iceland:12 | Malaysia:U | Brazil:12 | Argentina:Atp | Australia:MA (director's cut) | Australia:M | Chile:TE | Finland:K-15 | France:U | Germany:12 (f) (w) | Germany:16 (f) (director's cut) | Hong Kong:IIA | India:U | Ireland:12PG (original rating) | Ireland:12 (video rating) | Netherlands:12 | New Zealand:M (original rating) | New Zealand:R16 (director's cut) | Norway:15 | Peru:PT | Singapore:PG | South Korea:12 | Spain:7 | Sweden:11 | Sweden:15 (director's cut) | Switzerland:12 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:12 (canton of Vaud) | UK:12 | USA:PG-13 | USA:R (director's cut)

Filming Locations:

Angel's Gate Park - 3601 Gaffey Street, San Pedro, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Touchstone Pictures

Trivia:

Cameo: [Matt Damon]firing a machine gun during the attack.

Goofs:

Continuity: We see an above shot of Evelyn putting ice on Rafe's nose (after the cork hits it), then it cuts to a side shot and we see Evelyn pulling the ice away. When the camera cuts back to the above shot, the ice is still on Rafe's nose and Evelyn pulls it away after a couple of seconds.

Quotes:

Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle: You know at Pearl they hit us with a sledgehammer. This raid, even if it makes it through, it'll only be a pinprick... but it'll be straight through their hearts.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Journey to the Screen: The Making of 'Pearl Harbor' (2001) (TV)

Soundtrack:

Jeepers Creepers

Bombed, torpedoed, sunk

Pearl Harbor will appeal to many with its big names, its schmaltzy and contrived love story, its special effects for their own sake and its simplistic appeals to patriotism, morality and retaliatory violence. Yet the reality is that its just another installment in Hollywood's ongoing butchery of history for its own corporate ends: film-makers who use events like the bombing of Pearl Harbor want to exploit its sentiment but feel no duty to do it justice historically. The tepid disclaimer offered by its makers - that this movie is actually a 'love story' and not a docu-drama - should be swallowed by no-one (why then call the movie "Pearl Harbor" and not "Hearts across Oahu"?) The disappointing outcome of this misrepresentation is that many, if not most will leave the cinemas or turn off the DVD and think "So, that was what it was all about..!" Actually, it was probably nothing like this.

The movie goes for about three hours when less than two would have sufficed, and the surplus length can be attributed to both prolonged scenes of the bombing raid on Pearl Harbor itself, and the set-up of perhaps the most pointless and pitiful love triangle in cinematic history. Beckinsale, Affleck and Hartnett tango around each other for far too long, combining disinterested looks with utterly ridiculous platitudes and emotional observations (in fact the whole screenplay for this movie ranges from mediocre to utterly atrocious). Inserting a love story into an epic war movie is tantamount to breast enhancement surgery: get it wrong and the whole package will look utterly ridiculous - and this one was done by a butcher, not a master surgeon. Perhaps the screen writing budget was instead spent on the special effects and bombing scenes, which were too long and offered nothing except a half-hour of noise, cacophony and flying things. It added no meaning or redemption to the film - and by this stage it was craving for it, after the romantic interludes.

Of course every Hollywood blockbuster needs absolution and resolution, so there's some of that. Cuba Gooding Jnr. plays a black USN cook who, in the heat of battle, mans a gun and shoots some Jap planes, despite being racially excluded from such duties (those canny Afro-Americans, they're always fighting for rather than against their oppressors). Alec Baldwin plays an Army officer who leads a token retaliatory raid on Tokyo four months after Pearl Harbor. Jon Voight does a good job of looking and sounding vaguely like FDR, so full of vigor that he at one stage jumps up out of his wheelchair. Even the Japanese who plan and lead the Pearl Harbour attack, when hearing of its success, seem aware that their actions have doomed them to inevitable defeat. It's all enough to gladden the heart of the most retrospectively-patriotic American. A shame though that reality and patriotism don't make good bedfellows, and that this appalling movie is a simple-minded sideshow that doesn't honor the Pearl Harbor dead, it downright embarrasses them.