Soldier (film)

For other uses, see Soldier (disambiguation).

Soldier
Soldier theatrical poster
Directed by	Paul W. S. Anderson
Produced by	Jerry Weintraub
Written by	David Peoples
Starring	Kurt Russell Jason Scott Lee Connie Nielsen Michael Chiklis and Gary Busey
Music by	Joel McNeely
Cinematography	David Tattersall
Editing by	Martin Hunter
Studio	Morgan Creek
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date(s)	October 23, 1998 (1998-10-23) (USA)
Running time	99 minutes
Country	United Kingdom United States
Language	English
Budget	$60 million
Box office	$14,594,226

Soldier is a 1998 science fiction-action film directed by Paul W.S. Anderson. The film stars Kurt Russell as Sgt. Todd, a soldier trained from birth. The film also features Gary Busey, Jason Scott Lee, Jason Isaacs, Connie Nielsen, Sean Pertwee and Michael Chiklis in supporting roles.

Plot

In the near future, as part of a new military recruitment and training program ("Project Adam"), a group of infants are selected at birth to be raised as soldiers. Undergoing extreme mental and physical training, they become virtual sociopaths, with no understanding of anything except military routine and war. A priority of the conditioning is that these soldiers are forbidden to speak unless spoken to, completely ignore physical pain, and to address whomever they are speaking to, women included, as "sir".

At age 38, Todd (Kurt Russell) is a hardened veteran of many battles, but he and his unit are about to be replaced. Colonel Mekum (Jason Isaacs) introduces a new group of genetically-engineered soldiers, designed with superior physical attributes and a complete lack of emotions except aggression.

Todd's unit's commander, Captain Church (Gary Busey) insists on testing the "new" soldiers' abilities against his own. But Todd, the unit's best soldier, is no match for Caine 607 (Jason Scott Lee). In the final trial, a fight between Caine and three "old" soldiers, two of Todd's comrades are killed, though Todd manages to gouge out one of Caine's eyes before he is defeated. Todd seemingly dies when he falls from a great height; but the body of a dead soldier cushions his fall, and he is simply knocked unconscious. Mekum orders their bodies dumped like garbage, and the remaining "old" soldiers are demoted to menial support roles.

Todd and his dead comrades are dumped on the surface of Arcadia 234, a waste disposal planet with dangerously high wind velocities. Though badly injured, Todd limps his way toward a colony of humans who crash-landed there twelve years earlier, and have managed to survive and build a society from the planet's ubiquitous mountains of trash.

Though they try to make him welcome, Todd has great difficulty adapting to the community due to his extreme conditioning. Todd's prior training of not speaking unless spoken to (and deliberately stunted social skills in general) make it difficult for him to answer questions in anything more than curt replies, and actually initiating a conversation is impossible for him. Many of the settlers are afraid of him, but he is sheltered by a settler named Mace (Sean Pertwee) and his wife Sandra (Connie Nielsen). Todd develops a silent rapport with the couple's mute son, Nathan, who had been traumatized mentally and physically by a snakebite. In a subsequent conflict with a curled snake, Todd teaches Nathan how to face it down and strike back to protect himself. However, his parents misinterpret the lesson, unsure of how to deal with Todd's apparent instability.

Todd soon begins to experience flashbacks from his time as a soldier and mistakes one of the colonists (Michael Chiklis) for an enemy, nearly killing him. The settlers decide that Todd is too dangerous to live among them, so they give him supplies and order him to leave. Outside the colony, he sheds tears. He is confused, not understanding what they are, implying that this is the first time that he has cried.

Shortly thereafter, Mace and Sandra are attacked by another snake, and are saved at the last second by Nathan, using Todd's technique. Mace then realizes that Todd has an important role to play in their community, and decides to leave on his own to find and bring him back.

The new genetically engineered soldiers arrive on a training exercise. Since the planet is listed as uninhabited, Colonel Mekum decides that the colonists' presence is unlawful and, as practice, orders his troops to slaughter them. Spotted by the arriving troops, Mace is killed just after he finds Todd. Though outmanned and outgunned, Todd's years of battle experience and superior knowledge of the planet allow him to return to the colony and kill the advance squad attacking the settlers.

Nervous that a much larger enemy force may be confronting them, Colonel Mekum, grudgingly accepting Captain Church's advice, orders the soldiers to withdraw and return with heavy artillery. Using guerilla tactics, Todd outmanoeuvers and defeats all of the remaining soldiers, including Caine 607, who is finished off in hand-to-hand combat.

Panicking, Mekum orders his ship's crew, composed of Todd's old squad, to activate a portable nuclear device powerful enough to destroy the entire planet, then orders the ship to lift off before they are back on board. When Captain Church objects, Mekum shoots him in cold blood. Before they can take off as planned, Todd appears, and his old comrades, now recognizing him as the ranking officer as a side effect of their conditioning due to their dismissal by Mekum, silently side with him over the army that has discarded them. Todd and his comrades take over the ship, tossing Mekum and his aides out onto the planet, and evacuating the remaining colonists just as the bomb detonates.

Todd orders the ship to set course for the Trinity Moons, the colonists' original destination, then picks up Nathan and points to their new destination, while looking out upon the galaxy.

Blade Runner

Soldier was written by David Peoples, who co-wrote the script for Blade Runner. By his own admission, he considers Soldier to be a "sidequel"/spiritual successor to Blade Runner. It also obliquely references various elements of stories written by Philip K. Dick (who wrote the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, on which Blade Runner is based), or film adaptations thereof. A "Spinner" vehicle from Blade Runner can be seen in the wreckage on a junk planet that features in the film.

There are also several dialogue references to events such as "Tanhauser Gate" from Blade Runner.

Cast

• Kurt Russell as Sgt. Todd
• Jason Scott Lee as Caine 607
• Jason Isaacs as Col. Mekum
• Connie Nielsen as Sandra
• Sean Pertwee as Mace
• Jared Thorne & Taylor Thorne as Nathan
• Mark Bringleson as Lt. Rubrick
• Gary Busey as Capt. Church
• K. K. Dodds as Lt. Sloan
• James Black as Riley
• Corbin Bleu as Johnny
• Mark De Alessandro as Goines
• Vladimir Orlov as Romero
• Carsten Norgaard as Green
• Duffy Gaver as Chelsey
• Brenda Wehle as Hawkins
• Michael Chiklis as Jimmy Pig
• Elizabeth Dennehy as Jimmy Pig's wife
• Paul Dillon as Slade

Production notes

The script was 15 years old at the time of production.

Kurt Russell broke his ankle during the first week of shooting, so the entire production needed to be rescheduled. The film makers first shot scenes involving Russell lying down, followed by scenes of Russell sitting, Russell standing but not moving, and so on.

References to other works

Among Todd's service records (both on computer screen display and on his arm), one can see:

• Combat history:
  • Battles of Tannhauser Gate and Shoulder of Orion (references to Blade Runner (1982), co-written by the same screenwriter)
  • Battle of Nibian Moon, Antares Maelstrom War (a reference to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)).
• Commendations:
  • "Plissken Patch" (a reference to Escape from New York (1981) and Escape from L.A. (1996))
  • "O'Neill Ring Award" (a reference to Stargate (1994))
  • "MacReady Cross" (a reference to The Thing (1982))
  • "Cash Medal of Bravery" (a reference to Tango & Cash (1989))
• Ordnance levels:
  • DOOM MKIV BFG (a reference to Doom)
  • USCM Smartgun (a reference to Aliens)

Reception

Box office

Soldier was a box-office flop. Shot with a budget of $60 million, it performed poorly during its theatrical run, earning only $14,594,226 domestically.

Critical reception

The film received mostly negative reviews upon its release, currently holding a 10% approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes based on 55 reviews. It was mainly criticized for its lack of character development and predictable script, but praised for its action scenes. Bruce Westbrook of The Houston Chronicle commented that "the action is handled fairly well, but it's routine, and there's no satisfaction in seeing Todd waste men who are no more bloodthirsty than he is." Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly criticized the film's overuse of genre clichés, saying "any cliché you can dream up for a futuristic action movie, any familiar big-budget epic you can think to rip off, Soldier has gotten there first." Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune described the film as "a big, clanging, brutal actioner in which we search the murk in vain for the sparks of humanity the moviemakers keep promising us."

Not all reviews were negative. Lisa Alspector of the Chicago Reader found the film to be enjoyable, calling Russell's performance "persuasive" and saying "this appealing formulaic action adventure displays a lot of conviction in its not-too-flashy action scenes and a little levity in the gradual socialization of Russell's character." Similarly, Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times gave the film a rating of 3.5 out of 5 and called it "a potent comic-book-style action-adventure."

Home video releases

Soldier was released on DVD on March 2, 1999. It was released as a double-sided disc, which included the widescreen version on one side, with fullscreen on the other. Included on the disc was a film commentary. Soldier was released on Blu-ray for the first time in USA on July 26, 2011.

Release in the United Kingdom

Soldier was one of a number of high profile Warner Bros. releases in the late nineties and mid-2000s to be released direct to video in the United Kingdom after underperforming at the box office Stateside.^{[citation needed]} While the film shares this dubious honour with titles such as Chill Factor ($34 Million) and Bait ($51 million), at $60 million Soldier was for a number of years the most expensive film of all time to be relegated to a video-only release^{[citation needed]}, up until the releases of 3000 Miles to Graceland in 2001 ($62 million) and Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever ($70 million) in 2002.

External links

• Soldier at the Internet Movie Database
• Soldier at Rotten Tomatoes
• Soldier at Box Office Mojo
• WB-Soldier.com - The film's official site
• October 2, 1997 draft of the screenplay
• Special effects sequences for the film