Martin Sheen dominates the proceedings in FORTUNES OF WAR, a latter-day adventure yarn concocted out of the post-war turmoil in Southeast Asia, specifically the resurgence of the Khmer Rouge. This uninspired but sturdy film is cribbed in part from Henri-Georges Clouzot's classic THE WAGES
OF FEAR, but a certain Vietnam epic featuring Martin Sheen in the jungle necessarily springs to mind.
Peter Kernan (Matt Salinger), a relief worker in Thailand recently terminated for his maverick ways, meets Carl Pimmler (Michael Ironside), a diplomat at the Canadian embassy, who offers him an unusual job. He's to accompany Carl's wife, Johanna (Sam Jenkins), who's flying in from Burma to
oversee a shipment of medicine bound for the selfless Francis Labeck (Sheen), a doctor and humanitarian operating a clinic upriver in the jungle near Kampuchea. An escort is to be provided by Colonel Shan (Vic Diaz), a corrupt Thai officer (and bald opium freak) who controls what amounts to a
private army, including mad Aussie bomber Rodger Crawley (Frankie J. Holden), whose idea of fun is hunting water buffaloes from airplanes with hand grenades. Kernan has his doubts, and enlists the aid of his friend Khoy Thuon (Haing S. Ngor), a local tavern owner reduced to tending bar at embassy
functions. At the last second, they learn that the medicine is not bound for Labeck at all, but rather for the Khmer Rouge, who plan to trade it for a cache of gold bullion stolen during the war by a Cambodian general.
Once at Labeck's mission, they switch the labels on all the medicine vials as insurance against a double-cross by the Khmer Rouge. The anticipated double-cross occurs, but Kernan still manages to make off with the gold at gunpoint, escaping an ambush by Col. Shan and his men. Kernan and Johanna,
lovers by now, split up to throw off their pursuers, and Kernan returns home to collect Johanna's son from Carl, thus clearing the way for their new life together. But Carl is seriously wigged out, and holds his own son ransom for the gold. He has Kernan meet him at an airstrip, where he promises
to turn over the child and Johanna's diplomatic passport in exchange for the treasure. But the wily Kernan substitutes gold-plated bars of lead, then tips off Col. Shan, who intercepts their rendezvous and shoots Carl when he won't give up the gold. Kernan turns over the real gold to Labeck's
clinic, and he, Johanna, and her son head for Seattle to buy a fishing boat.
According to the video jacket liner notes, FORTUNES OF WAR marks Martin Sheen's first return to the Philippines since APOCALYPSE NOW, and that epic casts a long shadow over the proceedings at every turn. From the opening shots of Kernan staring at a hotel room ceiling fan, to the introduction of
Sheen's Francis Labeck as "a saint ... or a madman," it's as if the earlier film's parallels between Kurtz and Willard had been carried forward a generation, with Sheen now his own version of Kurtz, "out there, beyond the pale, with no decent restraint," albeit filtered through the actor's
celebrated liberal-humanist Catholic-activist politics. Also, at least one uninhibited love scene in the rain consciously suggests THE YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY. This is not necessarily a bad thing.
Antecedents aside, the (relatively) authentic settings bolster the story's credibility, and add a welcome flair to what is still a perfectly serviceable peacetime war story. (Violence, profanity.) leave a comment
