Kommando Kids

FOR 141 years, the Bunker Hill Military Academy had been combatting sissy-hood with a curriculum of honor, patriotism and admiration for shiny things that go "BLAMMO!" Leading this adolescent boot camp since before anyone could possibly remember, Gen. Harlan Bache had always whipped his boys into a state of frenzied loyalty by commencement time. The way they looked up to the old guy, why you'd think they'd die for his beliefs. When Bache informs his assembled troops one fine June morning that their alma mater has been sold to condominium developers by a bunch of gutless civilian trustees, some of the real over-achievers get it into their heads to do something about it.

Taps is trying desperately to tell us something about traditional martial-macho values and about the dangerous lessons we teach kids. But the Big Themes are squashed right from the start under the weight of a ponderous and highly improbable story line. First Bache (George C. Scott) pulls a pistol during a townie-cadet brawl, eventually killing a local and suffering a fatal heart attack himself. Then, instead of packing up and heading for the shore, the youthful commandos decide to honor their fallen leader and the school he loved by declaring war on the outside world. Needless to say, they stumble upon a secret cache of sophisticated weaponry, which Bache had kept for no apparent reason.

"We're here, and the condos aren't. We've got a foothold!" bellows Renegade-in-Chief Brian Moreland (Timothy Hutton), and scores of miniature he-men scurry about with sandbags, grenades and machine guns. The war cry would be perfect at a Cambridge tenants' union meeting, but would 150 teenagers take on an armored National Guard division over a real estate dispute? That is, after all, the kind of thing that can ruin a kid's transcript.

SCOTT comes the closest to reality in this movie, playing the nutso commandant. Melding two of his better characters from previous films--gung-ho Gen. Buck Turgidson of Dr. Strangelove and bloodthirsty Gen. George S. Patton of Patton--Scott portrays a feeble ex-warrior who fails to make the crucial distinction between parade-ground bluster and actually killing for a principle. He doesn't intend to send the youngsters on a suicide mission, but he is the first one to talk about footholds and not giving in without a fight. Before things get out of hand, Scott interprets Bache's personal plight as an obsolete relic with considerable compassion; this is not an evil man, merely one who has let vague notions of glory replace rationality and skepticism.

Unfortunately, Scott makes an abrupt exit after the film's first half-hour, and we are left with his trigger-happy progeny. Director Harold Becker marches the pint-sized terrorists back and forth across the campus, back and forth,back and forth until he is absolutely sure that we see them as soldiers, not as kids. There is endless dialogue about honor and Bache's honor and honoring Bache, as the film deteriorates into a series of tedious confrontations: alarmed parents and stubborn offspring, level-headed National Guard colonel and misguided rebel leader, misguided rebel leader and cynical best friend. The relationships are obvious; piled one on top of another, they become an unwieldy burden on the journey to a predictable conclusion.

Hutton, the only actor other than Scott who stands out amid this mess of cliches and salutes, portrays a potentially interesting character who does ridiculous things. In Moreland there is an opportunity to explore difficult dilemmas such as how to maintain military pride without sacrificing individuality and humanity. But the makers of Taps haven't decided themselves what the answers are, or if any exist at all. Robot-like, Moreland plods on with his doomed crusade, and when the smoke clears, it's not at all clear who's to blame for this farcical shoot'em up: Bache, a few crazy kids, or society in general.

Speaking during a recent interview with film critics in New York, Taps producer Stanley Jaffe insisted that his movie does not condemn military high schools in general. Instead, he said Taps questions "whether we really know what we are teaching our children and how they will interpret it." It's an interesting question, and one answer--which somehow manages to ooze out of this ill-conceived flick--is precisely the condemnation the producer intended to avoid.

Obviously, as things now stand this country needs potent armed forces. We also need the service academies to train our colonels and generals. But why go out of our way to indoctrinate mere children into the necessarily brutal and often unthinking, unchallenging ways of the military? The Bunker Hills of this world are designed specifically to convince students that honor is a thing not subject to interpretation, that the ultimate question is, "Who has authority?" not "What do we do with it once we have it?" Jaffe admitted that the folks at the real-life Valley Forge Military Academy--where Taps was filmed--were not at all pleased by the final product. There was probably more to that sour reaction than simply confusion over an implausible plot. For all of its flaws, Taps is a good argument in favour of run-of-the-mill places called Central High.