Murphy's War
by Peter Yates
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Horst Janson, John Hallam, Peter O'Toole, Philippe Noiret, Siān PhillipsDirector: Peter Yates
Brand: PARAMOUNT HOME VIDEO
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Letterboxed, NTSC, Widescreen
Running Time: 107 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-06-10
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Paramount
Movie Reviews of Murphy's War
Movie Review: A forgotten gem
Summary: 5 Stars
As other reviewers have noted, this film is a forgotten gem. It's long, so be prepared to settle in for the duration. It is, as one person noted, a kind of WWII remake of "Moby Dick," but it's also a meditation on fanaticism (like Moby Dick); the irony here is that the German U-boat commander, who (spoiler alert!) machine-guns helpless seamen in the water and murders Murphy's (O'Toole's) pilot, is not a fanatic; he is just a technocrat doing his job, a cog in a big war machine; he has to kill everyone so his U-boat won't be discovered. His face shows his anguish when he shoots the pilot, and he tries to apologize; he's a "normal" man working in a lunatic war machine. Murphy, on the other hand, is a man who believes in nothing but himself, a kind of modern Everyman who becomes a fanatic through his desire for revenge. There's a lot of fuel for thought here; the Nazi is really kind of a normal man loyal to a perverse, fanatically sick political system, while Murphy, ostensibly "normal," really becomes functionally insane by the end of the film. The scene (spoiler alert!) where Phillippe Noiret walks away from him near the end of the film is telling.
The setting, somewhere on, I believe, the Orinoco or Amazon River, is interesting, and the contrasts between Murphy, the Nazi skipper, the pacifist doctor working at a Christian mission in the jungle, and the Noiret characters are engaging. I liked the fact that there was no attempt to create a love story between Murphy and the doctor. There is also a great scene where Murphy teaches himself to fly a reconnaissance float plane.
An interesting, different film.
Summary of Murphy's War
MURPHY?S WAR tells the story of the sole survivor of a World War II German U-boat attack that leaves him enraged and consumed with revenge.Similar DVD Movies
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