Nice effects though.

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

This film is almost hard to talk about. The Dalton Trumbo novel involves a man who has been dismantled in war. He is just a trunk and a head, with his body hanging on. He still has his sexual organs. He is immobile, of course, and dependent for everything on his caretakers. One young woman, a nurse, take pity on him and gives him a sexual experience. LIke any of us, he has dreams, but he is unable to express them to anyone. He needs stimulation but is kept in a dark room and approached on rare occasions. If there is a true nightmare, this would be it. The most devastating thing is that he is really young and will probably live a long time. We are kept involved with his thoughts through a kind of personal narration. It may be the saddest film I've ever seen.

This deeply felt anti-war drama will make you ask many questions as to the point of war, the frailty of humanity to stop future wars, and for me, this one: When your government sends you off to war, and you come back so maimed that your life is not your own anymore, who is to take responsibility for your mortality? Timothy Bottoms is the tragic hero, a nice innocent young man who goes to France and comes back so messed up, there is almost no point to survival anymore. No arms, legs, ears, eyes, mouth, nose. Simply a working brain connected to non-working flesh. The heart beats, the kidneys, liver and lungs do what they need to do. But an eternal living death endures with nothing but time to reflect and ponder why he survived. Bottoms recalls his very loving parents (Jason Robards and Marsha Hunt in magnificent performances) and learns to communicate with one nurse (Diane Varsi) through the Morse code he learned as a child. Bottoms makes a request-either put him on display so the world can see the tragedy of war, or let him die through mercy killing.Dalton Trumbo, whose screenplay credits list some of the greatest films Hollywood ever saw, recounts a bit of his own childhood along with his anti-war sentiments that made him an enemy of the McCarthy era and got him blacklisted. He wrote the original book back in the late 30's (just as Europe was beginning to start another World War) and also directed this engrossing film that will endure discussion for generations to come. Timothy Bottoms is excellent, showing such fear in his voice-overs as his soul begs to be released, remembering an ideal childhood that makes his tragic fate so much more so. Robards gives a performance as Bottoms' devoted father so nuanced and layered it is a shame he did not receive an Oscar Nomination. Veteran star Hunt, another blacklisting victim, is both strong and loving as his hard-working mother. You cannot help but be touched by Bottoms' remembrances of their special times together. In a controversial but tear-inducing appearance, Donald Sutherland plays the vision of Jesus Christ who offers Bottoms comfort but not release.I normally do not like films that flashback so recklessly between different times or films that reflect different moods. This film has three different moods-one for Bottoms' stay at the hospital, another for his adolescence, and the third for the metaphoric dreams he faces as he falls deeper into despair. All work seamlessly together to reveal the deeper strength of our souls that overpower our physical beings. Words alone cannot convey the depth of emotions that this film brings on; It must be seen so the individual can understand what makes Trumbo's writing so deep and special.

Having watched this i again feel almost blessed that i have never had to face the hell that must be a battlefield. Having debated the legitimacy of war many times with ardent pacifists i believe the jury is still out. What this film masterfully achieves is the distillation of one mans life through his memories after having his body obliterated at the end of the First World War. To single out one soul from the millions who perished simplifies the conflict and yet this is what makes the movie all the more powerful. Joes memories become more surreal as the story progresses and also display an increasing level of macabre black humour. In contrast the parallel story of his life in the hospital bed as a limbless faceless living corpse (eerily shot in black and white) shows him make "progress" eventually being able to communicate by morse to the hospital staff. The movie ends sadly with Joe realising the full extent of his predicament and all hope is lost. The surreal nature of some of the movie dream scenes and the effective use of black and white film pre dates cinematic styles later used by the likes of David Lynch and Dennis Potter.

I don't know how original it was in ol 1971; but I wasn't introduced to a single new idea in this movie.I also don't see how this movie is about the war... other than the fact that we know it suppose to be an anti war movie. And that we know that he was "injured" in the war. There is probably only a one scene that happens in a war. What you see in the trailer, are the heights of the scenes (probably all of them). But the scenes ware starched to an hour and 40 minutes. Maybe if it was 30 minutes; it would be, eeh... decent. But the way it is now, is way too long for that idea.I never wrote a review, till now. Just wanted to give a friendly warning, from someone how can watch a heavy movie; otherwise I wouldn't even try it. Thought this movie had something to say... it didn't. Not to someone who watched some good motion pictures in this day and age.