Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

BILLY LYNN'S LONG HALFTIME WALK(15)

D: Ang Lee

Tristar/Studio 8/L Star Capital/Film4 (Marc Platt, Ang Lee, Rhodri Thomas & Stephen Cornwell)

USA/UK/China 🇺🇸 🇬🇧 🇨🇳 2016

113 mins 

Drama/War

W: Jean-Christophe Castilli [based on the novel by Ben Fountain]

DP: John Toll

Ed: Tim Squyres

Mus: Mychael Danna & Jeff Danna

Joe Alwyn (Billy Lynn), Garrett Hedlund (Staff Sgt. David Dime), Kristen Stewart (Kathryn Lynn), Chris Tucker (Albert), Steve Martin (Norm Oglesby), Vin Diesel (Shroom), Makenzie Leigh (Faison Zorn)

A complete misfire from a director who can produce so much better. Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk is an absolute dirge which attempts to highlight PTSD of a marine returning back to the United States after a tour of duty in Iraq.

Presented as a hero with his unit as the halftime entertainment of a football game, Billy Lynn begins to suffer flashbacks of the conflict overseas, but that doesn't stop him fucking a cheerleader for no reason whatsoever.

Though this broke new ground of the filmmaking process (photographed at 120 fps) and there are moments which are visually striking, neither the story nor the characters are particularly engaging, the marines are portrayed as mindless meatheads and the anti-war sentiment doesn't come across at all. It's little wonder that this film bombed heavy at the box office.

Long, disappointing and pointless.

4/10