Love and Honor Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		4.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		1.5
Overall		2.5

Love and Honor Blu-ray Movie Review

Love in the Time of . . . When Was This Exactly?

Reviewed by Michael Reuben December 22, 2013

There is nothing wrong with using war as the backdrop for an intimate love story. Ernest Hemingway did it in his novel A Farewell to Arms, and Hal Ashby did it on the screen with Coming Home (1978), which, like Love and Honor, deals with relationships irrevocably altered by the war in Vietnam. But what Hemingway and Ashby understood, along with many other tellers of wartime romances, is that war is a specific experience. Every war is different, and every person's experience of war is unique. You cannot make a story convincing just by talking generally about danger, fear and firefights. You have to understand what the war was about, what kind of men (and, if appropriate, women) fought it, what motivated them, what their daily lives were like and what kind of world they'd left behind and how they saw it when they returned. In short, you have to imagine the world as the characters experienced it, and the details must be right. You can't skate by on pretty faces, hugs and kisses.

Unfortunately, that's just what the makers of Love and Honor tried to do. Reportedly based on a true incident in which a soldier in Vietnam went AWOL after receiving a "Dear John" letter, the film is set in July 1969, when the Apollo 11 space mission was carrying astronaut Neil Armstrong toward his famous walk on the moon. One can, if one reaches for it, extract thematic resonance, from the juxtaposition of these events with the relationships depicted in Love and Honor, but the only connection while the film is playing is that this is what the characters were doing when man first set foot on the moon. The space mission is just another historical element introduced to establish a sense of period, and it's as inauthentic as everything else on display. Vietnam doesn't look like the Vietnam that Americans saw on the nightly news, let alone in dozens of films and documentaries since the war ended. Nor does the student protest movement in Ann Arbor, Michigan look anything like the real Sixties counterculture, despite the fact that the production filmed in Ann Arbor. Either the filmmakers didn't bother to research the period, or they made a conscious decision not to recreate it. One can interpret comments in the "making of" by the director—Danny Mooney, making his feature debut—either way.

After a firefight that they barely survive, squad leader Dalton Joiner (Austin Stowell) and radio operator Mickey Wright (Liam Hemsworth, The Hunger Games) are given a week's leave with the rest of their squad in Hong Kong. But Dalton has other plans. He attributes his survival to his intense focus on getting home to Jane, the girl he left behind (Aimee Teegarden), but just before the firefight, he received a letter ending the relationship. Taking advantage of military flying privileges, Dalton returns home, where Jane is now enrolled in the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, determined to win her back. Though he was never asked, Mickey gives up a week of drinking, whoring and raising hell to accompany his buddy.

Ann Arbor was a hotbed of antiwar activity in 1969, and Dalton finds Jane living in a household of radicals headed by Peter (Chris Lowell). She has changed her name to "Juniper" and told no one that she has a boyfriend who's a soldier. Mickey, who is a natural con artist, fabricates a tale about how he and Dalton are deserters who have seen the war's futility first-hand. This gives them instant credibility in the house and rekindles the flame between Dalton and Jane/Juniper. Mickey's motives aren't entirely selfless; he's caught sight of another resident, a pretty blonde named Candace (Teresa Palmer, I Am Number Four ).

From this point on, one can pretty much predict the story's general direction. After initially resisting Mickey's charms, Candace will see beyond the bad boy exterior, only to be devastated when she learns that he isn't really a deserter. In the meantime, though, Mickey will have fallen in love for the first time in his life. Peter will behave despicably, because he's had his eye on Candace for some time. Dalton will have to choose between his love for Juniper and the "honor" of his career, and the choice will be wrenching. There will be anti-war demonstrations, encounters with the police, tears, regrets and recriminations and, in the end, true love will prevail. And on the distant moon, watched by millions, Neil Armstrong will take one giant leap for mankind.

The problem is that not one second of Love and Honor is remotely believable. Stowell and Hemsworth don't look, sound or behave like Vietnam vets, and no one in Ann Arbor remotely resembles an antiwar activist of the period. Even Ann Arbor doesn't look like it did then (and I remember it). The cinematic recreation of a period is always something of a magic trick, and it requires a wealth of collaborative crafts: hair and makeup, wardrobe, cinematography, choice of language, production design, all working in combination. The makers of Love and Honor either didn't try to recreate the period, beyond a few pop tunes, or didn't know how. Everyone looks and behaves like it's 2013. As my viewing companion observed, you keep expecting the characters to whip out iPhones and begin texting.

Unmoored from its historical context, the drama loses any urgency. The conflict of values that is supposed to make Dalton's situation so agonizing, and Mickey's emotional response to Candace such a surprise to him, feels hollow and forced—a dictate of screenwriters' necessity rather than a dramatic development earned by the events of the film. This isn't a story; it's a formula. Now, formula can have its pleasures, but if that's all the movie has to offer, why bother with Vietnam at all? Why not just set the story in modern times and have Dalton and Mickey fighting battles in Afghanistan or Iraq? Could it be that those wars are too recent, and that audiences might have too strong a reaction (pro or con) to soldiers who deserted, even in jest, during a conflict that still stirs passions? Did the filmmakers use an older conflict precisely because they hoped it had receded far enough into history that no one would take it seriously?

I hope not. But maybe they should go watch Platoon, Apocalypse Now, The Deer Hunter, Coming Home and Born on the Fourth of July, to see how it's done.

Love and Honor Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

According to IMDb, Love and Honor was shot with a Red One digital camera, and the results on IFC's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray certainly bear all the indications of digital acquisition: clarity, detail, lack of noise, solid blacks and a varied and fully saturated palette, achieved in post-production on a digital intermediate. The cinematographer was the experienced Dutch cameraman Theo van de Sande (Cruel Intentions ), who is certainly skilled enough to have delivered a period look if it had been requested. The film's contemporary photographic style must be deemed the director's and producers' intention, even though it's as out of synch with the era as everything else in the film.

Still, judged strictly from the point of view of image quality, IFC's presentation offers little to fault. The average bitrate of 21.81 Mbps is lower than it needs to be, which is partly a function of IFC's continued practice of wasting space on a redundant PCM 2.0 track. But Red footage compresses efficiently, and no obvious artifacts presented themselves.

Love and Honor Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Love and Honor features a relatively restrained DTS-HD MA 5.1 track, considering that a battle scene occurs early in the film, and a big demonstration that turns into a riot is a major event in the second half. Sounds such as gunfire, explosions and tear gas being fired are loud enough, but the surround array is sparsely used, and the sound mix would hardly be described as "immersive". Indeed, the sound design of Love and Honor is about the only element of the film that could be described as "period", since it confines itself largely to the front with some degree of stereo separation. Dialogue is clear, and the score by Alex Heffes (Red Riding Hood) is effective for the film's romance elements. Soundtrack selections such as Steppenwolf's "Magic Carpet Ride" and Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky" are the most authentic period elements in the film.

As previously noted, the disc also contains a PCM 2.0 track.

Love and Honor Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Making Of (1080p; 1.78:1; 11:00): This EPK features interviews with the director, principal cast and screenwriters, among others.



• Trailer (1080p; 2:35:1; 2:33): The trailer stresses the romance element, which at least constitutes truth-in-advertising.



• Additional Trailers: At startup, the disc plays trailers for Inescapable, Welcome to the Punch, On the Road and The Reluctant Fundamentalist, which can be skipped with the chapter forward button and are not otherwise available once the disc loads.

Love and Honor Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Love and Honor is harmless enough entertainment, if you're looking for a professionally engineered Blu-ray with a clear hi-def image featuring pretty young actors with good hair styles falling in and out of love, Hollywood-style. If you're interested in something with more substance, look elsewhere.