Genre: Biography/Drama/War
Director: Clint Eastwood
Writer: Dwight Gallo
Cast: Chris Pine, Kevin Costner, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Scoot McNairy, Lambert Wilson, Dustin Nguyen, Erin Moriarty, Susanna Thompson, Lucas Till, Tom Selleck, Karen Allen
Plot: 1968. John McCain (Chris Pine) is dragged out of his dirty and wet cell in Hoa Lo Prison, also known as the Hanoi Hilton, in North Vietnam. He is in a crude chest cast with two broken arms and one broken leg. He looks emaciated and his hair has gone white. He is finally forcefully dragged into a much cleaner room and placed onto a hospital bed. Vietnamese soldiers stand by as French journalist Francois Chalais (Lambert Wilson) enters the room with his camera crew. Chalais offers John a cigarette, which he gladly accepts, using the one arm he's barely able to move to hold it. Chalais tells John that the camera is rolling and asks his name. John gives him his full name. Chalais then asks John about his father. John tells Chalais that his father is Admiral Jack McCain and that he is Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Naval Forces in Europe.
1966. John McCain has managed to infiltrate the Officer's club at Naval Air Station Meridian in Mississippi where he is stationed. He holds court over the higher ranking officers, who are entertained by his drunken telling of the story of when he collided with a bunch of power lines while flying too low over Spain. After a long night of drinking, John drunkenly stumbles into bed, where his wife Carol (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) had already been asleep.
In the morning, Carol cooks bacon and eggs and pours John a large mug of coffee as he nurses a bad hangover. John finally gets dressed and reports to the base where they are getting ready for a ceremony to name the base's air field after his grandfather. John runs into his father, Admiral Jack McCain (Kevin Costner) at the base and gives him a salute. John mentions that he heard about Jack's promotion to Commander-in-Chief of the forces in Europe. Jack speaks to his son in a stern and professional tone rather than that of a father to his son. John comments that he knows his father has pulled strings to keep him away from combat, but that he doesn't want him doing that. John requests that his father get him stationed on a ship where he can fly some missions or something. Jack asks his son if he's sure he really wants that. John nods his head to his father. At the ceremony that night, the entire family is in town, including John's mother Roberta (Susanna Thompson) and brother Joe (Lucas Till).
1967. John McCain is assigned to the USS Forrestal, which is set to depart Norfolk for duty off the shores of Vietnam. John is pleased about the orders, but when he shares the news with Carol, she becomes angry with him. She wants to know if he requested combat duty. He asks her why that matters, and she begins yelling and throwing things at him until he finally admits that he requested duty on ship bound for combat. Carol begins crying. John puts a hand on her shoulder and tells her that he doesn't see the point in serving if he isn't fighting.
John McCain is getting ready to climb out of his A-4E Skyhawk jet on the deck of the USS Forrestal after a bombing mission. Suddenly one of the jets next to him is struck by a Zuni rocket accidentally fired from an F-4 Phantom on deck. Flames are everywhere as John jumps from his jet onto the burning deck. John's flight suit catches fire, but he manages to put out the flames. He then rushes over to help another pilot trying to escape the flames when a rocket explodes, sending John flying 10 feet backwards. When John comes to he starts helping other pilots throw rockets and bombs over the side of the ship before they can explode from the flames and heat.
John is selected to be part of an operation of 20 planes being sent to strike a the Yen Phu thermal power plant in central Hanoi. As John makes his approach, the warning systems in his plane alert him that he is being tracked by enemy fire-control radar. John decides to not break off from his mission. He releases his bombs, and as he starts to pull up, the wing of his plane is blown off by an anti-aircraft missile. His plane goes into a vertical inverted spin. McCain bails out of his plane upside down at high speed. The force of the ejection breaks knocks him unconscious. He wakes up in the Truc Bach Lake in Hanoi. The weight of his equipment begins pulling him beneath the surface of the water. He finds that his arms are broken and he is unable to move them as he tries to pull at the cord to inflate his life vest. As he struggles to keep his head above the water, John finally manages to pull he cord and inflate his life vest with his teeth. He is soon pulled ashoe by a group of Vietnamese. Once he is on the ground, the mob of people begin kicking and spitting at John. He is beaten with the butt of a rifle until he loses consciousness.
John wakes up in Hoa Lo Prison, the so-called Hanoi Hilton. He starts yelling that he is injured and needs medical attention. The Vietnamese soldiers in charge refuse to give him medical care unless he gives them military information. John only offers his name, rank and date of birth. They ask for more information, but he weakly replies that is all he is permitted to give them. The soldiers throw him into a cell with Bud Day (Scoot McNairy), who is shocked at how badly injured McCain is. He comments that if McCain is going to need one strong will to live to survive something like this.
The Vietnamese commander in charge of the prison, Lan (Dustin Nguyen), discovers that McCain is the son of Admiral McCain. Lan has John brought to him. He offers John medical care. John says his leg is broken. Lan calls in a doctor, who quickly and painfully sets John's leg. John cries out in pain. Lan demands more information from John. When John refuses, Lan has his men restrain John and stick bamboo shoots under his fingernails. John finally breaks a bit and reveals the name of his ship.
Lan smiles and tells John that he can be released if he would like. John says that he will only leave if every soldier captured before him is also freed. Lan asks why John would act so selfless, and John says that he is simply following the US Code of Conduct. Angry that John would defy him, Lan has him subjected to more and more vigorous torture methods. After four days straight of torture, John tries to kill himself by strangling himself with a blanket, but the Vietnamese guards stop him and leave him on the ground, lying in his own waste, gasping for air. He is dragged into a solitary cell. John bangs on the wall in Morse code. The man in the next cell, Bud Day, asks what that is supposed to mean, and John begins explaining Morse code to him.
1969. On Christmas Eve, Carol is driving outside of Philadelphia as it begins to dump snow outside. As she tries to take a corner, Carol's car skids and crashes into a telephone pole. Carol is brutally thrown from the car and into the snow. She tries crawling away, but quickly loses consciousness. When Carol wakes up she is in the hospital in a traction cast. A doctor sees her and tells her that she has two broken legs, a broken pelvis, a broken arm and a ruptured spleen. Carol begins crying, bemoaning that first her husband is taken prisoner in Vietnam and now she is a cripple. The doctor gives her a moment before telling her that he suggests they get her into surgery soon to rebuild her leg bones with rods and pins so she can get back to walking.
1970. In Los Angeles, Joe McCain sits in a bamboo cage eating simulated POW food at a protest. Later, over the phone, his father Jack chastises Joe for a foolish display, regardless of the motivation or intent. His mother Roberta gets on the phone and commends him for caring so much about his brother, but agrees that his time could be better spent. Joe apologizes to his parents. He says that he just wants the war to end so that John can come home.
1972. Admiral Jack McCain, now in charge of the Navy's Vietnam War efforts, orders a series of bombings near Hanoi on Christmas Eve, knowing his son is being kept at the Hanoi Hilton. John smiles in his cell as the bombings shake the walls of the prison. Through the wall, Bud asks John if he thinks those were good bombs or bad bombs. John says those were the good kind of bombs.
1973. In March, the Vietnamese guards load all of the prisoners of the Hanoi Hilton into buses where they are taken to waiting U.S. forces. Bud and John talk on the bus about their plans. John says he just wants to see his family, he doesn't care about the rest. Bud comments that he received a promotion while imprisoned for the past five years, so he plans on staying in the Navy and seeing out that promotion to Colonel. John wishes Bud luck and closes his eyes.
Back in the US at a base in San Diego, John reunites with Carol and their kids. Despite being in a wheelchair himself, he is stunned to see Carol walking with crutches. He comments that she looks shorter and asks her what happened. She tells him that she was in a bad car accident. She didn't tell him in any letters because she didn't want to worry him. John hugs his wife while looking around the room, seeming uncomfortable.
At a ceremony, John McCain is awarded the Silver Star, the Legion of Merit, three Bronze Star Medals and a Purple Heart Medal by President Richard Nixon. A short while later, John is additionally awarded the Navy Commendation Medal by his own father. As Jack puts the medal around McCain's neck, he smiles and nods at his son, telling him it's good that he's out of harm's way now. John struggles to smile to the crowd as he accepts his medal.
Hailed as a war hero, John McCain and Carol are invited to dine with California Governor Ronald Reagan (Tom Selleck) and his wife Nancy (Karen Allen) at the Governor's Mansion in Sacramento. When they arrive at the large mansion, they are intimidated. During the dinner, McCain and Reagan get along okay, but Nancy and Carol hit it off in a big way, becoming quick friends. After dinner, John and Reagan smoke a cigar in a back porch of the governor's mansion while Nancy and Carol are inside drinking coffee. Reagan asks John how it feels to be back home. John says it feels different than before he left, almost like he isn't the same person anymore. Reagan says he can only imagine what that would feel like and offers John a drink.
1977. John McCain dips his toes in politics for the first time when he is named as the Navy's liaison to the US Senate. He and Carol move to suburban Virgina. Around the capitol, John quickly becomes popular among the Senators in Washington and goes far beyond his job description and helps gain congressional financing for a new Naval supercarrier, even though everybody in town knows that President Carter is against it. Jack gives his son a call and commends him on his work getting the ship paid for. John thanks his father for the compliment and tells him that maybe politics is what he wants to do with his future. John tells Jack that he has started thinking that maybe he would be able to do more good in Washington than he can in the Navy, especially since it has become clear that he'll never be an Admiral, not like Jack or his father.
1979. John McCain meets Cindy Lou Hensley (Erin Moriarty) at an event in Hawaii. He takes an immediate liking to her and offers to buy her a drink. She pretends to be older than she is to impress John, claiming she's 30 years old. After several drinks, John and Cindy walk along the beach together. They eventually begin kissing in the sand. John and Cindy wake up on the beach in the morning. She asks him if he has any meetings to go to, and he tells her he doesn't care and gives her another kiss.
When McCain returns to Washington, he immediately goes out for drinks with several other capitol employees. When he returns home, John asks his wife Carol for a divorce. Carol is stunned and asked what she did. John scoffs and says that it has nothing to do with her, he just isn't happy. Carol yells at John, saying he needs to stop acting like he's 25 years old, pointing out that he's in his 40s now. John says he doesn't want to have some long, drawn out discussion. He's made up his mind. Carol says fine, and agrees to the divorce.
Following the divorce, Carol moves out to California when she is offered a job as Nancy Reagan's assistant. When Carol describes how John asked for the divorce. Nancy is aghast and immediately tells Ronald Reagan about the situation. Reagan tells his wife that he really doesn't want to get involved in picking any sides.
1980. John McCain leaves his post in Washington and moves out to Arizona to be with Cindy. They quickly get married at her wealthy family's ranch outside of Phoenix. As they are setting up their first home in Phoenix, John tells Cindy that he has decided to officially retire from the Navy and do something else with his life. She asks what that would be, and John mentions that he once told his father that he'd like to get into politics.
1982. John McCain is announced as the newly elected representative for Arizona's 1st congressional district. As John and Cindy celebrate, a local yells out that John is a carpetbagger stealing political positions from real Arizonans. John tells the man that his entire family was in the Navy, so he never had the luxury of putting down roots in a place as nice as the First District of Arizona, but he was busy defending the country. John is about to end the conversation, but then adds that the longest he has ever lived in one place was a prison in Hanoi.
John is sweating and kicking in his sleep. Cindy wakes him up to calm him. John tells her that he was having a nightmare he was back in the Hanoi Hilton. Cindy says that she thinks he needs closure with the Vietnam War. John asks her what she has in mind.
John and Cindy get off a plane in Saigon. John is nervous as he unboards the plane, taking each step down from the plane with a deep breath. Cindy holds her husband's hand, which he is squeezing. Cindy tells John that everything is going to be okay.
No comments:
Post a Comment