Ah the 60s. Love, Peace, The Sharon Tate killing, the Manson Family, The Beatles, Alaska being invaded by The Soviet Union, The Rolling Stones, Watergate, JFK getting killed, Flower Power, the murder of Martin Luther King, Led Zeppelin, the murder of Malcolm X, The Moon Landing and of course Vietnam. Starring Liam Hemsworth, Austin Stowell and Teresa Palmer, and based on the true story of a Michigan soldier, Love and Honor is a story of a man who flies home from Vietnam to convince his very bitchy but beautiful girlfriend to marry him. Though, watching it will give you the feeling that the film focuses more on the supporting, more famous characters, even going so far as having neither of the ‘main’ characters on the film poster.
In 1969, around the time of the Apollo 11 mission, Dalton Joiner (Stowell) is fighting in the Vietnam War. With his best friend Mickey Wright (Hemsworth) he is sent on R & R for a week in Hong Kong. Until now Dalton had been receiving frequent care packages from his girlfriend Jane back home in America. Suddenly, completely unexpectedly, and out of nowhere she whips out a break up letter, shocking and confusing Dalton faster than if she’d whipped out a penis. He finds himself instantly overwhelmed with denial and insists that she just fears his inevitable death and decides to prove to her his immortality by flying home and proposing to her.
Mickey, seeing that his friend is clearly going mad with grief, tries to console him and convince him to come meet some lovely Asian women in Hong Kong to shift his focus off his broken heart and onto his fully functioning penis. Dalton insists that he is going and this causes Mickey to do the good friend thing and go with him. Mickey is charming to everyone he meets, primarily because of all the lies that he tells, but his ability to woo the women he meets is tested when, as they arrive home, he meets a headstrong rebellious woman called Candace. So as the sun is rising on their relationship and setting on Dalton and Jane’s a tension arises.
I have to say that I liked this film, I wasn’t completely blown away nor drawn in by it, as I comfortably watched it over two nights and didn’t really care if I saw the end or not. It seems to me that they were trying very hard to show that though Vietnam was a terrible thing, being a soldier was brilliant, even if you didn’t want to be a soldier and you had to. The sneaky, jealous journalist guy was made to be out a dick, but not because of his beliefs, or his place in the war but because he was acting like a massive bell-end.
The actors all felt like, and I believe most of them were, teen actors from TV shows and films aimed at the younger end of teenager-hood, who all got together and decided to make a big grown up movie so people their own age would want to kiss them on the lips and touch their bums. The only thing the film lacked for me, was a reason to give a fuck about anyone in it, it was pleasant, non-offensive and was full of pretty people but was about as entertaining as a yoghurt.
For being a bit of ok it gets a 3/5.
[★★★☆☆]
Dave Roberts
Love and Honor at CeX
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