When I started watching this made-for-TV movie, I was skeptical for 2 reasons: (1) It's about the 60's (2) It got such horrible reviews. In fact, some critics hinted that it was so bad as to be a virtual career-ender. So I was pleasantly surprised when the story began to draw me in. Sure, it was a little cliched but that seems inevitable when dealing with that particular decade. As I watched, I began to wonder, what's going to happen to these people next?
In Part 1, we are introduced to 2 families: The Herlihy's & The Taylors. The Herlihy's seem to be the idealized late 50's nuclear family. (The only thing missing was the beloved family dog) Bill "Dad" Herlihy (Bill Smitrovich) is a tough, gruff, man's man, football lover & undisputed head of the house. Mary "Mom" Herlihy (Annie Corley) is June Cleaver supreme - she cooks & nurtures with perfect hair, flawless make-up, great clothes & the ubiquitous white apron. Brian Herlihy (Jerry O'Connell) is the favored older son, a true extension of his father's dreams, all around good guy & star of the high school football team. Michael Herlihy (Josh Hamilton) is the middle son, an amiable non-presence. Katie Herlihy (Julia Styles) is the much loved baby sister, a bratty/fledgeling hippe who takes the changing morals of the time all too seriously.
The Taylors are even more cliche ridden, which seems to be the fate of blacks in movies about the 60's. Reverend Willie Taylor (Charles Dutton) is a preacher & civil rights activist in the Deep South. "Mom" Taylor gets extremely short shrift - she isn't even listed among the first billed cast. Her primary function is to stand with mouth agape & support her husband & son by uttering endless banalities. Emmett Taylor (Leonard Roberts) is their only child, a witness to the struggles & determination of his father.
As the movie begins, The Taylors are battling prejuidice & segregation in a small Alabama town replete with racist white rednecks. Rev. Willie is leading the charge which results in several beatings & the eventual arson of his church. Emmett watches it all, furiously absorbing ideas with his mouth open. (Why do I have the impression that all of the actors are standing around agape? Probably because they are!) After the church is destroyed, Rev. Willie relocates to a new church in the Los Angeles ghetto of Watts. We see the Taylors drive off in their heavily-laden car ("Grapes of Wrath" in the auto age) with Emmett staring in wonder out the rear window, watching the South disappear. (mouth open naturally)
Meanwhile, at the Herlihy's: oldest son Brian graduates from high school after scoring the winning touchdown in the last game. But alas, it is not enough to win him a scholarship to Notre Dame as his Dad had hoped. So to ensure that his father remains proud of him, Brian enlists in the pre-war Marine Corps. Michael also graduates from high school, enrolls at Loyola University & is launched into political activism by his church. Although it must be said that his portrayal of political activism consists of strumming a guitar & looking compassionate while spouting platitudes to peace, love & brotherhood. In a stunnning feat of acting, he incorporates all of this AND stands around with his mouth open ALL AT THE SAME TIME. Katie Herlihy is doing angst 60's style, kissing boys & eventually winding up pregnant from a peculiarly passionless one-night stand with a musician. (See what a game of Spin-the-Bottle leads to?)
The Taylors establish their church & are promptly subjected to the horrors of the Watts riots. Emmett runs wild with the gang until confronted by Rev. Willie who demands that he put down the purloined TV & hand over his recently acquired gun. Emmett obeys his father, only to see him shot down by a policeman who thinks Rev. Willie is brandishing the gun at him. End of Part 1 for the Taylors.
Brian Herlihy goes through basic training & winds up in Vietnam, fighting the Red Menace. (Who could have seen THAT coming!) Katie reveals that she is pregnant & reacts to stern parental disapproval by stealing Michael's stash of cash & running off to San Francisco to reunite with her musician boyfriend. Once there, she finds hippes, drugs & Neal painting his "old lady" in the nude. She become part of this menage a trois, has her baby & continues living the idealized hippie lifestyle.
Michael is dragged farther down the road of political conviction & begins going to marches & sit-ins. (Only part of his time spent with his mouth open - he's becoming a "serious" young man) At Columbia College (NY) he meets the love of his life, Sarah Weinstock (Jordanna Brewster), an intelligent, upper-class, bourgeois Jewish Princess. We also FINALLY get to meet Jeremy as Kenny Klein, brilliant & charismatic radical leader. Jeremy gives his character an intensity & focus that is sadly lacking in the performances of Hamilton & Brewster. In fact, Michael is such a non-presence that you wonder what a smart girl like Sarah sees in him in the first place. So it's not surprising that Sarah winds up with Kenny - you can tell just by watching the Chinese Food Incident that Kenny is going to get the girl & eat Michael's lunch (or egg foo young as it were)
Jeremy is easily the best actor of the whole flick. Kenny is fiery & idealistic, a true original & hypnotic leader who is SO alive. (That alone sets Jeremy's portrayal apart from the other performances). He is passionate yet subtle & romantic in his scenes with Sarah. A true breath of fresh air amidst the stifling cliches. (And this is the part of the movie I LIKED - it's only downhill from here). End of Part 1.
Part 2 finds us on the streets of Haight-Ashbury, in one of the most artificial & contrived scenes in the movie. Emmett has dropped out & turned on & is mistaken for Jimi Hendrix. He meets Katie in her guise of angelic hippie princess but nothing develops from this brief coincidence. Emmett is recruited by the Black Panthers who are portrayed rather one-sidedly as fountains of black idealism & all around "good guys."
Brian is living through the horrors of war but finds time to come home on leave & have an argument with brother Mikey over the war. Michael alternates between mooning after Sarah & being a witness to the great political upheavals of his time. Sarah, of course, is madly in love with Kenny & at his elbow every step of the way as Kenny leads marches on Washinton, occupies the office of the dean at Columbia & attends the infamous Democratic convention in Chicago. Kenny fervently sticks to his ideals & principles while getting beaten by police & arrested. Kenny (as portrayed by Jeremy) is steely-eyed, determined & passionate about making the revolution happen & changing the nation for the better. (We could use a few Kennys right now in America.)
Katie, baby in tow, gets tired of living the penniless hippie lifestyle (especially when her son gets ill), takes an ill-advised stab at topless dancing & fails, appalled by the animal nature of the patrons. (Sorry babe but what did you expect?) Left with no place to live & what little money she has stolen, she calls home in a crisis (in the rain natch!), hangs up & moves to the Hog Farm Commune, a group dedicated to feeding the people of Haight-Ashbury while staying as stoned as possible. An unintentionally funny & revealing scene here: Katie, who has displayed no ambition or will of her own, complains that at the Hog Farm, women are unfairly saddled with typical "women's work." It is her one pathetic, unformed stab at women's lib & makes her seem more like a spoiled brat than a woman of ideals. Naturally, this sub-plot goes nowhere.
Brian is discharged from the Marines & comes home from Vietnam, irreparably damaged by what he has seen & done in the war. There are hints of nightmares & alcoholism & mental health issues that remain very vague. Michael becomes his older brother's best buddy while STILL mooning after Sarah & drags his brother to political rallies.
The next scene begins full of brilliant possibilities, the meeting of Michael, Brian & Kenny at the March on Washington, Kenny recruiting Brian to speak - but falls flat when absolutely nothing is developed & the script again resorts to well-worn cliches. Brian mumbles a few words, freaks out & splits. Michael looks at him anxiously. Sarah looks at him anxiously. Even Kenny looks concerned & saddened. But nothing more comes of it - end of scene - CHA CHING! A real waste of a potentially great scene that just goes nowhere. Which could be the catch phrase for this movie - "It just goes nowhere." A sad waste of intriguing possibilities or too ambitious for such a limited time format even though it does run a deadly 171 minutes. You decide.
Marching relentlessly forward, Emmett still belongs to the Black Panthers & meets a mentor while serving breakfast in Watts. Said mentor tries to undermine Emmett's hatred & bitterness. And succeeds without much trouble. At the end of the movie, Emmett is cheerfully dishing eggs & telling young, scowling recruits that "Breakfast goes better with a smile."
Sarah (sans Kenny) runs into Michael at a rally that she is covering as part of her budding career in journalism. They go back to her room but despite an exchange of Dylan platitudes, the meeting goes nowhere. She has broken up with Kenny (who is now being pursued by the FBI) & is looking for a "friend." Michael responds by saying that he has loved her for years - but he'll get over it. (Go figure!)
At the pinnacle of unreality & cliche, Brian & Michael go to Woodstock, get rained on & do acid. Brian freaks out (did anyone think it was a GOOD idea for the shizo Vietnam vet to do acid?) & gets hauled off to the medical tent where not only is he found by Michael but is treated by Katie (still with the Hog Farm) which leads to a happy family reunion. The "kids" all go home where Dad lets Katie into the house but seems underwhelmed by her miraculous return.
Sarah, summoned by Kenny (how? Brain waves? ESP?) shows up at the underground, dingy, anonymous hideaway where Kenny is building a bomb. Kenny is as gorgeous as ever, even though he is now a blonde (hiding from The Man, you dig?) Sidebar here: I love Jeremy but he just doesn't make a good blonde. His complexion is too dark for that color & when they try to whiten it up - re: Trackdown - he looks like a ghost. But this scene is sublime if only for Jeremy's wounded, bitter portrayal of Kenny & some superb lines. "When the movement decides it wants a lid, it gets one." Sarah throws money at him & asks (incredibly) why he couldn't have just had her send him a check. (HELLO!) She basically dumps all over Kenny, telling him that he's a failure, empty of ideals & then proceeds to unload some of MICHAELS great wisdom. She gets up to leave & it is obvious that Kenny would love to have her back (heaven only knows WHY) but their parting allows Jeremy to get off one of the best lines of the whole movie - "Goodbye my bourgeois princess." Truer words were never spoken - at least not in this movie.
As Sarah makes her way down the street, Kenny sits down at his arts-and-crafts table & lights a roach. The building explodes, showering Sarah with debris (and little pieces of Kenny no doubt). Her reaction to the violent death of a man once her teacher & her lover? Not even a sigh. A blank look & she walks off, only to resurface at the Herlihy family Bar-BQ where all wounds are healed & all arguments settled so everyone can live happily ever after. But not before playing a family game of touch football in the front yard (GAG) No wonder Kenny blew himself up - it was to avoid scenes like this. The End.
If you skipped the spoiler section, don't worry. Just insert any or all cliches you have ever heard or read about the 60's & you're there. Actually, you probably have a better ending in your head than they did on paper or film. Oh well.
Overall, I would rate this movie as POOR - watchable only for Jeremy. The film was far too ambitious & populated to really drive home any one point or point of view. Too scattered. Too cliche ridden. Too often taking the easy way out. After a fairly promising beginning, it plunges to the depths of stereotypes. Would I watch it again - all 171 minutes of it? No, once was enough thank you. But I would rewatch every one of Jeremy's scenes - he is the only actor in the movie (with the possible exception of the Rev. Willie, who disappears early on) who moves past the superficiality of the material & imbues his character with humanity & realism. In this, he succeeds very well. He is perfect as "Kenny." Too bad the rest of the cast is so emotionless & wooden. Perfunctory performances by all but Sisto.
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