May 2002 Volume 83 Number 5 "serving the protectors"
Edited by John Ballantyne

Dark Blue World

In 1939 the lights went out all over Europe.

As Hitler’s armies swallowed up Eastern Europe, a number of people escaped, including Polish, Czech and Slovak pilots who joined up with the British Royal Air Force (RAF) to fight the Nazis.

Acclaimed Czech film producer Jan Sverák (Oscar-winning Kolya) tells a bittersweet tale of love and war concerning a group of Czech pilots.

At first they are laughed at by their British superiors in the RAF until they prove themselves in the air.

Franta Sláma (Ondrej Vetchy) is the father figure to this motley group of men who desperately want to win back their country.

The story centres on a friendship between Franta and his young daredevil protégé, trainee pilot Karel Vojtísek (Krystof Hádek).

Their friendship is put to the ultimate test when both men fall in love with the same English woman, Susan (Tara Fitzgerald), whose soldier husband is missing in action.

Spitfire and Messerschmitt fighter aircraft provide edge-of-the-seat viewing with spectacularly staged dogfights in the skies over Britain.

Tragically, the surviving Czech, Slovak and Polish pilots who played such a heroic role in saving Western civilization were not able to rejoice with the end of the war.

For now their homelands had become occupied and enslaved yet again – this time by communism.

On the Czech pilots’ return home – as Dark Blue World shows – they were treated not as heroes but as spies, and were thrown into prison and tortured by the paranoid, repressive authorities.

The Count of Monte Cristo

Ever known what it is like to be wrongly accused and abominably treated?

Dashing young sailor Edmond Dantès (Jim Caviezel) is an innocent man wrongly imprisoned in this classic tale by Alexandre Dumas (of Three Musketeers fame), set in the southern French seaport of Marseilles in the 19th century.

Young Edmond’s plans to marry the beautiful Mercedes (Dagmara Dominczyk) are cruelly thwarted when his supposed “friend” Fernand Mondego (Guy Pearce), who wants Mercedes for himself, deceives him.

The innocent Edmond is arrested on trumped-up charges of treason and thrown into a wretched island prison where he endures 13 years of solitary confinement and an annual flogging.

As he ponders the cruel turn his life has taken, his character turns from a bright-eyes idealist into a cold-hearted avenger.

His salvation comes in the shape of another prisoner, the Abbé Faria (Richard Harris), a former priest, who tells him of a magnificent hoard of treasure that is supposedly hidden on the island of Monte Cristo.

Faria’s death provides Edmond with a spectacular means of escape.

Edmond finds the treasure, and with it re-invents himself as the fabulously wealthy Count of Monte Cristo.

He dazzles French high society, while secretly devising an elaborate plan of revenge against all those responsible for his 13 years of imprisonment.

Although this is a tall story, it is highly appealing, sumptuously filmed and crammed with action and adventure.

We Were Soldiers

“We are moving into the Valley of the Shadow of Death where you will watch the back of the man next to you, as he will watch yours, and you won’t care what color he is, or by what name he calls God. We are going into battle against a tough and determined enemy.”

“I can’t promise you that I will bring you all home alive. But this I swear… when we go into battle, I will be the first to step on the field and I will be the last to step off. And I will leave no one behind… dead or alive. We will all come home together.”

With these words, in November 1965, Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore addressed 400 young soldiers under his command before they touched down in the Ia Drang Valley – a place in Vietnam known as the Valley of Death.

On arrival they found themselves surrounded by roughly 2,000 communist North Vietnamese soldiers.

Mel Gibson, who plays Moore, and writer/producer Randall Wallace – acclaimed for their previous joint production, Braveheart – have teamed up again to bring to life a best-selling Vietnam War book co-authored by Moore and civilian war correspondent Joseph L. Galloway.

Galloway (Barry Pepper, Saving Private Ryan) walked onto the battlefield in the Ia Drang as a mere journalist with a camera and walked off as a soldier after he was forced to pick up a weapon and join in the fight.

Lt. Col. Moore comes across as a many-sided character – a West Point graduate with real military genius, a man with religious convictions who prayed for his own men as well as for the enemy, a brilliant strategist, and an instinctive commander.

This movie is no less a testament to the courage and sacrifice of the wives and families who were left at home.

Moore’s wife Julie (Madeleine Stowe) took it upon herself to deliver death notices to the widows. She felt semi-responsible because her husband was the leader of these men who were dying, and she felt that the women would be comforted more by human contact and sympathy than just a telegram from a cab driver.

John Q

John Q. Archibald (Denzel Washington) is an ordinary man forced to work reduced hours at a factory while struggling to provide for his family.

His wife Denise (Kimberly Elise) and young son Michael (Daniel E. Smith) are his world.

Tragedy strikes when Mikey collapses during a baseball game and is rushed to a hospital.

The situation is bleak. Only an emergency heart transplant will save Mikey’s life.

But it is an expensive operation that John Q. can’t afford and his health insurance won’t cover. And time is fast running out.

The hospital’s renowned heart surgeon (James Woods) is willing to waive his fee for the operation, but is overruled by the hospital administrator, who is forced by financial circumstances to take a hard line and send the boy home.

John Q. then takes a desperate gamble – he takes matters into his own hands and holds the surgeon and several others hostage in the emergency care wing until the operation is performed.

Now a criminal in the eyes of the law, he faces a stand-off with the local police chief (Ray Liotta), who assembles a SWAT team to take him out. Meanwhile, hostage negotiator (Robert Duvall) attempts to gain his trust.

This film is a blatant and crude indictment of US hospitals and health care, but it is effective and taps a deep well of public anger.

Special Movie Offer

For your chance to win one of 20 John Q double passes (valid May 9-22), put your details on the back of an envelope and send it to John Q Comp, SA Police Journal.

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