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Tom Cruise stars in The Last Samurai as Nathan Algren, a troubled Civil War veteran (and winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor!) who suffers from severe PTSD over his participation in a massacre of Northern American Indians.  Like many disturbed veterans, Algren drowns his memories in the bottom of a whisky flask.

(Click here for the Best and Worst War Movies about PTSD.)

Algren is hired by two Japanese diplomats to travel to Japan and teach professional soldiering to the Japanese Army, as part of a larger military trade package from the U.S.


which includes Japan buying up machine guns and cannons, the most sophisticated (and deadly) weapons available within this period of history.  The Japanese government is battling (and losing) an internal rebellion which is being led by samurai warriors; the hope is that the addition of some modern technology will turn the tide in the war.

However, in the Japanese Army's first engagement (one which they are not ready for) with the  samurai, the Army is quickly routed and Nathan Algren is captured as a prisoner by the samurai.  

(Click here for the Best and Worst Prisoner of War Movies.)

What happens next is a recurring trope within the war film genre:  The cynical western war hero learns over time to respect the ways of the indigenous culture - which is actually a culture of wisdom and great value - and ends up becoming apart of the tribe, before leading them in battle against the Army he used to fight for.  This is, by the way, the exact storyline of both Dances With Wolves and Avatar.  And so it is here:  Algren quickly learns that the Samurai are actually very peaceful and spiritual and place great value on discipline and honor and love and family and community.

 After the samurai village is attacked by ninjas (yes, ninjas!) Algren is accepted as a samurai (this process also involves many training montages where Algren's skills are brought up to the level of a samurai), Algren is accepted as one of the community.

(Click here for the Best and Worst Medieval War Films.)

By now a year has passed and the Japanese Army has finished its modernization.  The soldiers are now all well armed and disciplined, and sporting machine guns and cannons.  And they are coming to kill the samurai once and for all.

The samurai, forsaking firearms and using only "natural" weapons like swords and arrows, are set to be slaughtered.  Except that Algren can now lead them in battle to save the day...or not.

The film's main theme involves the modern world rudely changing the course of Japanese culture.  The samurai, of course, represent Japanese history, and the old ways, whereas the government agents that initially hired Algren, and later led Japanese troops in battle against him, represent the harsh incursion of modernity and technology.  This is both intended literally as suggested by the weapons used on the battlefield (the samurai's bow and arrow versus the battling machine gun now employed by the Japanese Army), but also culturally, as a modern Japan with its western clothing and record players is meant to signal the death of the quaint peaceful village lived in by the samurai.

Unfortunately, whereas a nuanced film would discuss this theme in a realistic manner, this Hollywood film is all emotional shortcuts and simplicity.  Meaning that - of course - the samurai area all good and the government's two political agents (who represent a desire to bring Japan into the modern era and eliminate the samurai) are all evil.  

As is often the case in these Dances With Wolves remakes, while the films should be commended for not falling on old untrue stereotypes that the Native Americans or the Samurai are all "savages," these films go too far the other direction, suggesting that these indigenous communities are almost entirely perfect:  Harmonious, devout, and loving.  All the samurai in the film are spiritual zen masters, at perfect peace with both themselves and their communities.  (Somehow I suspect that in real life, some of these samurai were probably a lot more vicious than their being portrayed as on film.)

And herein lies the film's main problem:  It's phony sentimentality.  The audience is being played as an emotional mark.  We're given two sides of a conflict, both of which are painted in exaggerated moral hues, and then being told that what we're watching is complex richly colored melodrama when actually it's acutely simplistic pastel.  We're being told that war is terrible, while the film spends so much time making it look beautiful and seductive.