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.
It 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.[1] 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.
Synopsis
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, and they address whomever they are speaking to, even women, as 'sir'.
At age 40, 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 apparently dies when he falls from a great height, but the body of a dead soldier cushions his fall, and his 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 training not to speak 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 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 (appearing not to understand 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.
But then the new 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 them, 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 colony.
Nervous that a much larger enemy force may be confronting them, Mekum orders the soldiers to withdraw and return with heavy artillery. Using guerilla tactics, Todd outmaneuvers and defeats all of the remaining soldiers.
As the surviving colonists emerge from their ruined homes, one last "super" soldier is seen to be alive: Caine 607. Todd confronts Caine in hand-to-hand combat, and manages to defeat him.
Panicking, Mekum orders his ship's crew, composed of Todd's old squad, to plant a miniature bomb 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. But before they can take off as planned, Todd appears, and his old comrades, as a side effect of their conditioning now recognize him as the ranking officer, due to the deaths of Church's command staff and their dismissal by Mekum. They 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.
Cast
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.
Reception
Soldier was a box office flop. Shot with a budget of $75 million, the film only took in $15 million worldwide.[3] The film was critically panned, in part due to the lackluster dialogue that had Kurt Russell speaking only 79 words over the course of the 99 minute movie.[4]
DVD release
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. The film's audio was mixed in Dolby 5.1 surround sound for the DVD, and included on the disc was a film commentary.
- Features
- Available Subtitles: English, French
- Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), French (Dolby Digital 5.1)
- Commentary by: director Paul Anderson, co-producer Jeremy Bold and actor Jason Isaacs (Dolby Digital 2.0)
References
External links
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