Taps (Special Edition)

Full disclosure: I was in my first year of three years at a fairly prestigious military academy when this came out. Leaving the theater in uniform was... um... awkward. There was a period of time there where it felt like the civilian town population was afraid we were going to engage in armed insurrection. Not happening.1) all military prep academies (and I mean all of them) are JROTC, as in Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps. They don't drill with operable, militarized weapons. Ever. They also don't have access to automatic weapons like M-14s, M-16s, or miniguns. And they certainly don't have live grenades! That was just absurd.2) we had an entire armory filled with hundreds of M-1s and M-14s that were demilitarized weapons, as in the firing pins were removed and the cylinders drilled out, so they couldn't be replaced. We used them for close order drill and to field strip and reassemble. 40 years later I could probably strip down and reassemble an M-1 in under two minutes.3) the only operable weapons we had on hand were a few dozen .22 rifles, and they were only for range qualifying. They were issued to the shooters at the range, and returned at the range.4) the one thing the movie did get right was the townie attitude towards the cadets. There was a lot of misplaced anger and envy hurled our way, and after I graduated they stopped allowing cadets to walk into town because they were being targeted by carloads of drunk, angry townies. They now provide shuttles and private security at some places.To its credit, Taps hits hard at what was the anti-military public attitude of the time. It came out just six years after we left Vietnam, and in complete contrast to today, anyone who joined the military back then was considered either a loser or some insane person who just wanted to hurt people.Finally, our military school was pretty hard-edged and gung ho, but getting the cadet corps to take over the place just to keep it open? That would have been laughable. If during my senior year they told us that the school was shutting down and they were building condos in its place, we all would've thrown a huge drunken party in celebration, and then scrambled off to college. All the military cadet were the farthest thing from brainwashed automatons. If anything we were more critical of many of the military's shortcomings.Taps is a good movie, but take the circumstances of the story arc for what it is: hyperbole to drive a point home.

I received the order in good time new packaged great quality was good and I really enjoyed it

An overlooked, gripping drama that is notable for its young rising stars (Timothy Hutton, Sean Penn, Tom Cruise) and also its prescience, as noted by another commentator here, although I think that none of the Amazon reviewers to date has hit the nail on the head with "Taps" and its overarching theme.The movie begins fairly conventionally, with the teenage military cadets and their venerable institution shown to the viewer to be upright, virtuous, and full of sound moral values. The youths may be a bit immature at times, and callow, but their earnestness and sincerity are shown as admirable and their devotion to their gruff, benevolent commandant (George C. Scott, perfectly cast) is unquestioned. You can literally hear the Sousa marches playing in the background. But just when you think you're in for a predictable, one-sided, nattily uniformed prep school movie preaching the military virtues, the plot takes a darker twist and we learn that appearances can be very deceiving. Faced with the closing of the school, the boys turn renegade, immediately betraying their duty of obedience in the emotions of the moment. While determined, brave, and motivated by principle, they are at the same time defying legal authority and behaving unwisely. Recognition of this causes the relationships and trust among the cadets to splinter tragically. Through the words of Hutton's career soldier father -- a wonderful supporting performance, with the hard, practical professional tearing down the cadets' naivete -- we are presented a picture of Scott's commandant that does not fit the boys' hero-worshipful image. And then the national guardsman who arrives to end the armed takeover of the school acts as Hutton's conscience, pointing out to him how far from the path of honor he has truly strayed.Hutton's friends -- the pragmatic Penn, who wants to end the conflict peacefully, and the belligerent Cruise, who lusts for a bloody showdown -- tug him in two directions and he manages to antagonize both of them, furthering his sense of isolation and failure. Finally, the accidental but predictable death of an extremely young cadet -- no more than a boy -- is lain at Hutton's feet, and is more than he can bear. There is no glory or purpose in this death -- "You just think about what a great little kid he was, and how much you're gonna miss him," Hutton is forced to acknowledge, in the movie's big statement: that high-flown rhetoric about dying for honor and country isn't enough. "There must have been something more that we weren't taught," he tearfully reflects. Subtly,"Taps" has moved away from preaching the sanitary hagiography of "Dulce et decorum est / pro Patria mori" to address a greater truth -- that without wisdom, military virtues and sacrifices are just so much posturing and lead only to waste and misery. It was a brave statement to make back when this film was made and an even more important concern in 2005. The final shots -- a grieving Penn and the surviving cadets slowly fading into the mist, then an abrupt cut to a reprise of the triumphant military review sequence from earlier in the movie (is this supposed to be a vision of Hutton's entrance into Valhalla?) -- starkly hammer this point home.A fine, thoughtful movie that is sympathetic to all its characters but also does not shy away from condemning their blindness. As an ROTC alumni myself (at one stage of my life I would have loved to attend a school like this, and part of me still would), I salute it.

Good story. Good writing and acting.

I first watched this movie at a time in my life when I was the same age as the characters in the story. And it made a tremendous impression on me at the time, and still does so now.You have what looks at first like a character study, set against the background of the standard, "Oh no, they are closing us down!"-type movie.What you actually receive is a fine explanation of a type of honor, duty and service from a past generation, juxtaposed against a newer, nuanced world. Mix in, a more than generous helping of Lord of the Flies, and you now have an allegory of what can happen if honor is taken to a childish extreme without the tempering of pragmatism.Even absent of this moralizing, you have a character study that will surely interest viewers. There is the stoic and honorable General, forming the next generation of duty-bound soldiers. Each soldier still having vestiges of their past lives and personality. As the plot develops we see a rich interplay of these personalities.Correctly, there is a somber ending. War and warriors usually do have this terminus. But we also see the death of a way of duty bound way of life, paralleled against the tragic waste of war. Every viewer will see this differently, and there is the point.

Classic bratpack movie with a very missed strong actor George C Scott.My blu ray copy was from Moviemars at an incredible £6.29.The back cover displays the 'A' symbol (which usually indicates region one code) but plays on my UK Panasonic Blu ray player fine. Image and sound is crystal.No mention of HD transfer but there is 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio and 1.85:1 Widescreen which fills my 50" plasma.Extras:Sounding the Call to Arms: Mobilizing the Taps Generation featurette.The Bugler's Cry: The Origins of Playing "Taps" featurette.Trailers and TV Spots.Very pleased!

A preposterous and deeply horrible film, riddled with cliches and embarrassingly brittle attempts to moralise. I challenge anyone to watch this gun-toting exhibitionism from beginning to end after the next highschool/shopping mall/subway massacre takes place in the USA.

Great film.

Very dated and rather childish! Your ten year old may enjoy it but anyone with an IQ higher than a hamster will do the same as me and throw it in the recycling bin!

As far as I am concerned a minor 80s classic,a great cast including Tom Cruise and Sean Penn,worth the money! The story about a military school that is closing and the students/boy soldiers who take it over and the consequences of that is well acted by all involved,well worth a look!