Man in the Middle Reviews

• It's about time!

  
  By A1P9WWK5CBNY6E on 2007-02-02
  20th Century Fox is to be congratulated for at last releasing to DVD this excellent movie. It has remained far too long in the vault and I am glad the studio has finally taken the intiative in releasing it.
  
  The list of the film's virtues would run pretty long, but let me single out just a few. It has a great cast, headed by Robert Mitchum who does his usual fascinating performance, and lovely France Nuyen, who has never looked more beautiful. And just when you think you've been thoroughly entertained by these actors in comes Trevor Howard to steal the show, giving a brilliant performance. The fine script is well-directed by Guy Hamilton, who always did first-class work. He keeps the story moving well with continued points of interest. The music by John Barry is compelling and the cinematography by Wilkie Cooper is nothing short of superb.
  
  It also has one other thing to recommend it: it has, bar none, the most striking opening scene in film history.
  
  

• Man in the Middle 1963

  
  By A3GN9I0UYV08LC on 2007-08-30
  Hollywood screen legend Robert Mitchum (1917-1997) heads an all-star cast in this *powerful..provocative* wartime drama , featuring exotic , unexpexted twist and an unforgettable courtroom climax ! . In a remote jungle outpost in the far eastern theatre of WW II , a hottheaded American Soldier murders an alilied British Sergeant in cold blood . Stalwart American Lt. Colonel Barney Adams (Mitchum) is dispatched to defend him in the ensuing court martial . But When Lt. Adams starts encountering roadblocks in his search for evidence , and his key witnesses start disappearing one after another , he soon realize he's merely a pawn in a mysterious conspiracy that could extend to the highest level of military power . High Quality Transfer . Recommended
  
  

• A pretty good military drama with a good story

  
  By AUI702QTNKN1E on 2007-12-01
  Some of this movie may have been the basis for the film A Few Good Men. Robert Mitchum is a lieutenant colonel flown from Europe to India to be the defense attorney for an American lieutenant who murdered a British sergeant. He hasn't practiced any law for over 16 years and his primary defense witness, a doctor of phychiatry, has been transferred and his damaging report on the defendent suppressed by his superiors. The defendent is played by Keenan Wynn. The more his attorney speaks with him and others who knew him, the more convinced Mitchum becomes that the trial will not be fair and his defendant will be found guilty instead of insane. The rush to hang him is the excuse used to reduce tension between the British and American armies stationed in India.
  
  The love interest for Mitchum is a nurse at the hospital played by France Nuyen. She becomes attracted to Mitchum and eventually they have a romance. But some of the scenes between them feel contrived. As she hugs him in one scene and when he is about to leave again at the end of the film she has no tears for him even though she tries.
  
  At times the music is a little to melodramatic and does not really fit the scene. It is intended to dramatize a particular scene but is overdone. And of course there is the curstomary marching military band and patriotic music used in the film at some point.
  
  The courtroom drama is pretty good, but the prosecuting attorney allows the defense attorney a lot of leeway to challenge its witnesses without any objections. The courtroom scenes in the Cane Mutiny are far better. The ending to this film leaves the audiance to speculate on whether the defendent is found guilty as the outcome of the trial is not shown or discussed.
  
  Overall this is a pretty good film, but not a great film. The Cane Mutiny and A Few Good Men are still better films about flawed characters and military justice.
  
  

• Truth over Career Advancement

  
  By A24YMFZYZ13P5 on 2008-06-25
  Great little movie with some fine acting.
  
  An American officer has shot and killed a British sargeant for no apparent reason. U.S./British relations are already frayed and the brass are concerned that this will impact the success of planned joint operations against the Japanese. They want the American officer tried and hung, promptly.
  
  Recovering ETO Army Air Corps hero LTC Barnie Adams (Robert Mitchum) is pressed into service as defense attorney, as he has a legal background long ago in his past. As an 18-year career officer looking foward to a promotion to full colonel, Barnie is initially planning to just do his job, give a not-too-spirited defense of his client, and get on with his career.
  
  When he is constantly frustrated in his attempts to collect information needed to assess the case, and key defense witnesses are transferred or die, Barnie gradually decides truth and fairness are more important to defend than his chance for career advancement. Fine supporting acting jobs are done by France Nuyen, Keenan Wynn and Treavor Howard.
  
  A couple of minor quibbles, but they are minor. The military score gets at bit over-wrought in parts. In my experience, if an enlisted jeep driver summoned a LTC by repeatedly leaning on the horn, he's find himself an E-1 in the field with a rifle in his hands pretty quick.
  
  A movie well worth seeing. A wartime movie, not a war movie.
  
  

• Hollywood at its most turgid...

  
  By A230ZS8F6I0AGM on 2008-10-18
  It starts out with a fairly interesting premise: even an insane bigot deserves a fair trial. Along the way we're supposed to loathe both the nut-case defendant and the military men who, for some mysterious reason (we never discover it) are trying to hang the guy fast-and-get-it-over-with (something about him embarrassing Our Cause). Whatever. Total bloviation (not a dictionary word, but you get the point). Mitchum looks like he's about to burp up his dinner. He was not at his best here. That wig or whatever thing was sitting on his head, makes him look like a fifty-year old "boy." France Nyen was wasted as an ineffectual, idealistic witness to the injustice going on, and drawn romantically to the bilious, over-the-hill MItchum (why?) The only amusing characters were the two legal flunkies Mitchum keeps telling to "shut up." There's some kind of jokey thing going on to keep them in their place when they seem to be the only ones who truly want justice (aside from Ms. Nyen, of course, but she's so boring it doesn't matter). And then you have the "secondary" racism and sexism, on the part of Mitchum, no less, who is supposed to be a late-blooming champion of civil rights. "Still taking laundry?" he quips, as he drops in on Nuyen, described as "French-Chinese" (get it? Chinese = laundry) and calling her "honey" every time she tries to be anything more than decorative. I mean, this movie doesn't know what it wants to be, and in the VERY, VERY long run is a turgid mish-mash of bloviated bologna. I sat through the whole stupid thing and the only way I can justify the waste of time is to get it out of my hair by writing something funny about it. I'm going to bed. If I dream about Robert Mitchum chasing his hair through a muddy ditch in Far India, I'm suing Twentieth Century Fox.
  
  

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