The General’s Daughter (1999) – Review

Where do you go after crafting ludicrously entertaining action romp Con Air? Well, for director Simon West you apparently shoot for the complete tonal opposite by turning in John Travolta-led procedural thriller, The General’s Daughter. Where the adventures of Cameron Poe was sheer, gleeful escapism, his adaption of the novel of the same name grappled with some dark, heavy themes that included murder, intrigue and sexual assault in the military thst demanded a delicate hand and an empathic ear.
However, as we were currently in the year of 1999, West ultimately shot this brooding thriller in exactly the same style as his action epic, aiming for visual bombast and allowing Travolta to take centre stage with only marginally less restraint than he showed in movies like Broken Arrow and Face/Off. Does such a heavy hand stop The General’s Daughter from fulfilling its mission? Well, that really depends on what the mission is to begin with – showy whodunit, or a commentary on misogyny in the military?

Smugly antagonistic Chief Warrent Officer Paul Brenner is an undercover agent of the United States Army Criminal Investigation Divison Command and we join him as he thwarts an illegal arms trade with a self professed freedom fight while looking immensely pleased with himself. However, while he thinks that his time putting on a fake southern accent is soon coming to an end, his chance to leave the sticky heat of Georgia is temporarily halted when a disturbing rape/murder occurs on the grounds of Fort MacCallum.
As complex as figuring out the culprit would be at the best of times, matters are made exponentially worse when the victim is revealed to be Captain Elizabeth Campbell, the daughter of Lieutenant General Joseph “Fighting Joe” Campbell and Brenner is given a limited amount of time to solve the crime in-house until the FBI steps in and everything is made public and to aid him, he’s teamed with rape specialist Warrent Officer Sara Sunhill – but wouldn’t you know it, both she and Paul were once ex lovers which makes things all the more awkward. However, amongst a whole lot of mocking banter, the pair soon start racking up suspects with Elizabeth’s rather intense superior, Colonal Robert Moore, sitting at the very top, but considering that both he and Elizabeth’s forte were Psyops, his evasive behaviour could be a sight of anything.
However, as the investigation continues, it’s revealed that Elizabeth had some rather aggressive sexual tastes that involved her having quite a list of casual sexual partners and a taste for BDSM. Coupled with a mysterious, traumatic event that occured in her past that no one is willing to disclose, Brenner and Sunhill start noticing a certain amount of pushback on the part of military personnel that threatens more violence if they don’t cool their detective jets.

If there’s a glaring issue with The General’s Wife, it’s that the movie doesn’t seem to know what sort of movie it should be. Judging by the incredibly grim subject matter that expects you to casually digest such atrocities as gang rape, there’s a sense that the movie could have been a call to arms when it comes to highlighting the misogynistic attitudes of the US military and that a more sensitive and dignified approach might have meant that this trigger point recieved the stage it deserves. However, if you really do want to highlight the treatment of women in the military (and everywhere else), you probably shouldn’t have hired the director of Con Air to shoot it like a Jerry Bruckheimer produced action movie. In fact, if you didn’t watch the movie when it was first released in the late 90s, you might find it exceedingly odd that a movie about such a delicate topic as sexual assault is kicked off with a scene where John Travolta kills a goon with a motorboat.
However, if you were to take the more political stuff off the table and just take the more disturbing and unsettling aspects of the plot as just stuff that happens in the plot, The General’s Daughter proves to be a rather slickly shot and robust thriller that curiously sees John Travolta looking like he’s having the time of his life. At this point in his career, Travolta was still riding fairly high after his resurgence thanks to Pulp Fiction as the devestating atrocities of Battlefield Earth hadn’t yet nuked his bankability back to the stone age and throughout this increasingly grim whodunit, the actor seems surprisingly chipper and he shares endless examples with salty banter with virtually the entire cast. In fact, it’s a timely reminder just how charismatic the actor could be when given a film to lead, even if the end result is forgettable, but solid thriller to sink his teeth into.

Again, considering the subject matter, making the lead a smirking wise-ass who trades on-the-nose barbs with his ex girlfriend maybe isn’t the most wise decision, especially because Travolta is on a smarm offensive that makes Tom Cruise in A Few Good Men look like the Dali Lama in comparison. Still, he’s backed up by a nicely juicy cast that includes Madeleine Stowe, James Cromwell, Timothy Hutton and Clarence Williams III, but it’s James Woods’ turn as a Colonel fond of mind games and pitting wits that proves to be a standout. In fact, a scene where he and Travolta mentally spar in an office while they also show their working as they explain to the other their tactics work is actually genuinely engrossing.
Of course, you don’t make a glossy thriller in 1999 without throwing in a random gunfight or a weirdly huge and out of place explosion to look good in a trailer, but while the lion’s share of the film does what it says on the tin, it’s those problematic moments that manage to hold the film back fro either of its wobbly goals. While the filmmakers do seem to genuinely trying to bring attention to the issues at hand, the fact that its done almost entirely from a male perspective is a little strange, especially considering it was made in the same decade as Silence Of The Lambs. Making the egotistical gobby dude the hero instead of the female rape specialist seems such a curious misstep I’ve no idea how anyone involved missed I. Similarly, for a film that seemingly points an accusatory finger at the male orientated military complex, Simon West sure makes the army look cool and even the central rape scene is a hugely epic event as explosions, helicopters and smoke fill the air in a bizarrely showy sequence.

What you ultimately get from The General’s Daughter will probably hinge on what you feel the filmmakers should have delivered. If you’re hoping for a thought-provoking piece about the nature of women in the military, you may think that the film is hideously flawed. And yet if you’re genuinely here for a splashy, sweat-soaked, star-studded crime drama with strangely harrowing undertones, then the General’s Daughter proves to be a nicely above average thriller with Travolta on top, zinging form. Just don’t expect it to change the world.
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