Touches You

Redundant and unnecessary.

Good concept, poorly executed.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

This is a wonderful character study of two friends throughout life.Al (Nicolas Cage) and Birdy (Matthew Modine) put in some great performances, to be expected by this point from Cage. Birdy wants to transcend his human experience and learn to fly. Cage humors his aspirations and wants to help his friend.Later on, the friends go through something neither can fully comprehend. (Vietnam War) The ramifications of the war weigh heavy on their heads.It's a tale about friendship, and what it means to be there for someone. Highly recommend.

Birdy (Matthew Modine) is the weirdo kid in a working class Philadelphia neighborhood. Al Columbato (Nicolas Cage) becomes his friend. Birdy introduces Al to his love of pigeons. They're both sent to Vietnam. Birdy returns in psychological distress after a month MIA. Al returns after suffering wounds to his face. Birdy's doctor finds Al to help in his treatment.These are two great performances. Matthew Modine transforms physically and also mentally. Cage is the conduit between the audience and Birdy. He's not necessarily in the easier role at the least. They're both equally amazing. This isn't a movie about big plot developments. It's watching the obsessive Birdy going deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole.

Birdy is a young man growing up in Philadelphia in the nineteen-sixties who is obsessed with birds and thoughts of flight. He and his friend Al are sent to fight in Vietnam but are shipped back with both physical and mental wounds. As Birdy withdraws into a silent catatonia, can Al bring him out of his dream world ?Based on a book by William Wharton, this tender character study of friendship, madness and the haunting effects of war is extremely well written and directed, and beautifully played by the two leads. How much you empathise with Birdy depends very much on your experiences I guess, but I find his devotion to learning to fly and his bewilderment at many of the ridiculous qualities of people very easy to identify with. He is a lunatic in the pure sense that as his obsession deepens the gulf between reality and his dreams doesn't matter to him, but he's a well-adjusted lunatic who understands other people but simply isn't interested in behaving like them. His concept that birds fly more through self-confidence and a respect for the properties of air (as opposed to more mundane issues like weight and velocity) is incredibly seductive and thought-provoking. The movie really makes you think about the damage society does to people, both on an everyday suburban level (Birdy's mother, Al's father) and a historical/global level (the horrors of combat). If it has a flaw it's that the lengthy scenes in the military sanitarium are grey, talky and inevitably one-sided, in sharp contrast to the vivid slice-of-life sections in Philly, all of which are full of humour and pathos (the dog-hunting sequence is particularly gleeful and horrible). Overall however it's extraordinarily beautiful - Michael Seresin's photography is haunting and absorbing, lingering over dark blue spaces and dirty backyards or soaring skyward as Birdy escapes into his fantasies. Equally powerful is Peter Gabriel's brooding, rich, esoteric sequencer music which (uniquely in film scoring history I think) was culled, reconceived and re-recorded from samples of songs from his previous two studio albums. The music lurks around every scene, mewling and pulsing like some animated force, providing a voice for Birdy's voiceless inner state. Cage and Modine are both excellent, with a fine support cast and a great troupe of animal actors who duly receive prominent credits - this must be the only film to employ a stunt canary. There were a slew of 'Nam films made in the mid-eighties (Hamburger Hill, Platoon, Gardens Of Stone) and whilst this fits that category it's about much more than just what's now referred to as post-traumatic stress disorder. It's about searching for an escape from everything, a point of view which brings extreme clarity and which no-one else can attain. A fine drama.

I rarely want to say outright to never watch a film, and I don't want to say that about "Birdy" but I have to give a warning. There is a graphic scene involving the death of an animal. I never take animal deaths well, but I can usually make it through a film even if it has animals dying.In "Birdy" though, I got so wrapped up in the unlikely friendship between Nicolas Cage and Matthew Modine and the insight and history of Modine's character, that I was just so invested in the film, that when this very unsettling graphic death of an animal occurred, I couldn't take it anymore. I had to immediately turn it off and not finish the film.What makes this worse is the fact that I was enjoying the characters and development and interesting story. After talking with a friend who had previously seen the movie and recommended it to me, he said the version he saw didn't have that scene and that it really doesn't add anything to the story. So apparently they made two versions of this scene, one that is watchable and one that isn't.I'm supposed to take to heart that this was fictional and no animals were harmed in the making, but it was still a very upsetting film viewing experience. If you have no heart, perhaps then you can make it through "Birdy". But I think it's time to start protesting the use of graphic violent deaths just to increase controversy and turn people off. I'm turning off "Birdy" and will never recommend it, just because of that one scene.