Movie Review: Pearl Harbor (2001)

This is not really a very good historical novel, but it does present three young people with the backdrop of Pearl Harbor, and then Doolittle's Raiders.
Captain Rafe McCawley (Ben Affleck) is best friends with Captain Danny Walker (Josh Hartnett).  they grew up together, dreaming of flying.  Rafe falls for a nurse, Nurse Evelyn Johnson (Kate Beckinsale) and they fall madly in love.  However he also signed on to serve with the British Royal Air Force as a volunteer, before America had entered the war.  They pledge to each other before he leaves.  He is shot down and presumed dead.  In the meantime Danny and Nurse Johnson are relocated to Pearl Harbor.  Danny falls for the same nurse.  He gets her pregnant.  How awkward when Rafe shows up, and joins them in Pearl Harbor.  He had been picked up by a boat, and finally made it back, although it took him some time.

Amid that triangle mess, Pearl Harbor happens.  The action is intense, and there is not much the Americans can throw back at the Japanese because many of their airplanes have been destroyed.  Except for a couple in which Rafe and Danny chase after the Japanese.  There is an intense scene in which they coordinate with people on the ground to take out a plane.
Danny and Rafe then join Doolitttles's (James Doolittle played by Alec Baldwin) raiders.  There is another classic scene in which President Roosevelt stands despite his polio and demands that the Americans strike back at the Japanese.  Needless to say the raid was a suicide mission.  There was not enough fuel in the planes to fly to Japan, and make it back to the ship.  The goal was to ditch the planes in China, and hopefully find some Chinese Nationals who would keep them safe.  Some of the planes actually make it to China, but before the Chinese rescue them, there are some Japanese patrols to deal with.  In this struggle, Rafe is killed.
A side note, during the attack on Pearl Harbor we see Captain Mervyn Bennion and his death aboard the USS West Virginia.  He also befriends a Black soldier who is only allowed to cook, but during the battle he takes up an antiaircraft gun and shoots down a plane.  Both of these are true stories. 

Movie Review: ****Tora, Tora, Tora (1979)

This is a very good depiction of Pearl Harbor attack in 1941.  This is the 1970 depiction of the attack on Pearl Harbor.  It includes both the depiction from the side of the Americans and the Japanese.  Much of it is with subtitles.  This is a very good movie.  It depicts the failure of the Japanese ambassadors to deliver documents declaring war before the attack was started.  As a result, Japan attacked a country with whom they were attempted to negotiate peace.  This was a major point of President Roosevelt's address the following day.  

This movie does a very good job of explaining the failures of intelligence and other systems of communication to give warnings of the impending attack.  Instead, the telegram message arrives after the attack as it was not marked urgent.  The report from the newly mounted radar equipment is ignored.  The report of a submarine being sunk is down played awaiting confirmation.  It seems people doing routine horse rides and golf games effected their ability to respond.  Tora, Tora, Tora (complete surprise) was achieved as a result.
The movie does not portray the stories of individuals in the fighting very well, but we do see the USS Arizona blow up and burn, and the USS Nevada make for an escape, and then ground itself so as to not block the channel.
It concludes with the famous line of Japanese Yamamoto, "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."