i just watched pearl harbor today as i took a sick day from school. (i was sick, but i couldn’t pass up a WWII flick). the way the movie depicted the japanese was so awfully hypocritical. they were portrayed as wiley, coniving beasts who were the most significant aggressors in the whole damn war. given that the chaos and horrible raid of pearl harbor evokes great sympathy and compassion from me, i just wished that jerry bruckheimer could have showed the USA in their true role during the infamous war. at first, they were a reluctant force in the ever-intensifying battle against nazi germany; USA was known as the democratic “sleeping giant”—if you will—weary of aiding those in europe whom they considered war-mongers, still stuck in their lives of mass consumerism and televisions and refrigerators and metal toasters.

as for the japanese, they are shown in pearl harbor as the sole figure in the violence of WWII. may i remind movie-goers of a horrible trauma that is still affecting millions even today, inflicted by USA no less? it was the terrible atomic bombing of japan’s hiroshima and nagasaki. and i just love how the movie decided not to add that little factoid of the vengeful attack laid by americans on mere civilians—they didn’t bomb soldiers or even important military bases, mind you, but residential areas—not just killing thousands, but murdering men, and even women and children, by the millions. the radioactive aftermath of the two nuclear explosions is still creating cancerous diseases among japanese citizens.

it doesn’t matter to me that the good ol’ US of A was just finishing off their great depression and this attempt at war made their society more financially stable. their recession was a product of their own stupidity—speculation, buying on margin, over-production, bad leadership, and hoovervilles—and i wouldn’t put it past them at the time of their entrance into WWII to be directly vengeful with their suicide mission to bomb tokyo. they were willing to kill their own men.

even the attempt to convey budding romance to the plot just made it such a farce in my eyes. i did enjoy the action sequences of the bombs hitting the USS Arizona and john voight’s lovely impersonation of franklin delano roosevelt. but the love triangle? where did that fit in? and why was it so unrealistic in a film that is purposefully about the realism of pearl harbor?

despite the historically inaccurate and incredibly desentizing aspects of the film, josh harnett gets my vote for sole attraction in the entire screenplay.