(1979) After successfully defeating the Navy in a mock-war training exercise, at his send-off party, US Marine dogfighter Lt Col Wilbur "Bull" Meecham (Robert Duvall) pulls an ungentlemanly, disgusting stunt with a can of mushroom soup. It's 1962 as Bull returns to his family of wife Lillian "Petunia" (Blythe Danner) and four children, rousing them in the early hours for the drive to Beaufort, SC.

He drills his children ("hogs") - Ben (Michael O'Keefe), a senior, his oldest whom he expects to follow him into the Corps after college; Mary Anne (Lisa Jane Persky), the most rebellious; Karen (Julie Anne Haddock); and Matthew (Brian Andrews) - to be winners in academics and athletics: "Inspection oh-nine hundred." (Military expectation of its officers: If you can't control your family, how can you be expected to command your squadron?)

"Has the Great Santini," as Bull refers to himself, "ever let his family down?" - moving them into a grand Southern mansion with a colored maid, Arrabelle Smalls. Ben, forms a tight friendship with Toomer Smalls (Stan Shaw), Arrabelle's son, who introduces his new pal to his fierce dogs, explaining that they're not mean, "just prejudiced."

For his reputation as a crackerjack pilot and fair leader, Bull has been assigned the task of shaping up the 312th Werewolf Squadron; Cuba is drawing serious concern.

Ever the competitor, Bull at 41 (never before beaten on his home turf) battles Ben, taller and soon-to-be on the high school's varsity team, one-on-one under the basket in the driveway with everyone cheering for Ben. His way of demonstrating love is harsh - waking Ben at 0400 hours to give his son on his 18th birthday his own WWII leather pilot's jacket - as he says to Lillian: "You gentled him too much."

In an attempt to attract her papa's attention, Mary Anne announces that she's pregnant from a Negro named Rufus who's both a pacifist and a homosexual.

A warrior without a war, Bull, who has his own uneasy relationship with authority figures, demands vengeance from Ben on the basketball court against an opponent and obedience to his commands. But when Ben hears that Toomer's in trouble with racist Red Pettus and other rednecks, he ignores his father's instructions not to get between "the niggers and the grits."

Director Lewis John Carlino's melodramatic movie, based on Pat Conroy's novel, lacks subtlety, but reminded me (in exaggeration) of my own upbringing as a military brat. No matter what happens in your life, you are to show a brave face in public, keeping your emotions in check, and release your grief and tears in private.

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Copyright © 2009 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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