Devotion – Review
138 Minutes, Rated PG-13
Written by Jake Crane, Adam Makos, and Jonathan Stewart
Directed by JD Dillard
**NOTE: this post will be updated with audio once we actually have the chance to talk about it. Until then, you can read Mark’s review below. Stay tuned.**
Synopsis:
A pair of U.S. Navy fighter pilots risk their lives during the Korean War and become some of the Navy’s most celebrated wingmen.
If you haven’t figured it out yet, I have a bit of a soft spot for war/military movies due to my personal history as an Air Force retiree.
No, and I’ve said this many times, I’m not a combat veteran. I’m not as cool as even the least cool Marine, but my career allows me to have a bit more empathy and understanding of the world behind the genre.
Imagine my surprise, then, when Columbia Pictures released, with relatively little fanfare, a movie not just in my wheelhouse, so to speak, but one which bills itself as a story about America’s “Forgotten War:” Korea.
I know that most people only know about Korea through the classic television sit-com M*A*S*H, which famously ran for ten years when the “police action” in Korea only lasted two.
So it’s nice to see a film purporting to cover that terrible conflict.
Purporting.
First, let me just say that any war film should probably be seen on a big screen at some point. The scale of the screen needs to match the scale of the conflict. It just does.
Second, Glen Powell is in danger of being typecast as a Naval Aviator; from John Glenn (Navy/Marines) in Hidden Figures, to Hangman in Top-Gun: Maverick (Navy), and now Lt John Hudner in Devotion (Navy). Just saying. He really embodies the type, but careers have been undone for less.
Third, is there a movie out in the last or next 2 years that doesn’t have Jonathan Majors in it? Between Marvel movies and TV, HBO’s Lovecraft Country, Devotion, the upcoming Creed III… he’s simply everywhere.
Okay, now to the movie.
Devotion is directed by J.D. Dillard, himself a Navy brat and son of a Naval aviator who flew with the prestigious Blue Angels; he knows the world in which he’s working here, that’s for sure.
Adapting the book of the same name, Devotion, the film centers on the relationship between Powell’s Hudner and Majors’ Ensign Jesse Brown as they train to fly the most powerful aircraft and perform the most dangerous missions in the navy of 1950.
As an African American pilot, things are not all sunshine and roses for Jesse, though his squadron mates seem generally amenable and appreciative of his undeniable skill in the cockpit. The rest of the Navy, and society in general, of course… not so much.
I know that Powell is credited as a producer for this one and understand how much effort he put into getting the film made, from finding the right director, to casting, to all of it, and I appreciate he desire to make a good depiction of these two men and their story.
We meet Brown’s wife, Daisy, played by Christina Jackson, and learn Hudner is alienated from his family due to his career choice.
The rest of the squadron is pretty thinly developed. In fact, Joe Jonas plays one of them, but even that is pretty unremarkable, as I didn’t recognize him until the credits rolled and his name popped up.
Here’s the rub: the marketing on this film about the “Forgotten War” is misleading at best about what we’ve actually gotten here. Of its nearly 140-minute runtime, 80 minutes is dedicated to some (very) slow-rolling character development and training sequences.
Well, by “training sequences,” I mean an initial flight by Hudner and Brown when Hudner first arrives at the base which is designed to demonstrate how gifted a pilot Brown is, and a carrier-landing sequence designed to demonstrate how little Brown feels he can trust his fellow Naval personnel.
Then, finally, at the 80-minute mark, we finally get to go to Korea.
I guess my biggest problem isn’t what’s on the screen, per se, but rather what’s not on it. There’s no real sense of camaraderie in the unit, save for the interlude in Cannes when Elizabeth Taylor (Serinda Swan, Reacher, Inhumans) makes an appearance.
It all just feels like a really shallow look at, well, everything. From the interpersonal stuff to the actual Korean/Chinese stuff, it all feels like a surface-level examination of the evils of racism, segregation, military service and sacrifice, and especially the Korean War (Conflict: whatever, politicians… it was a War).
The “Forgotten War” gets forgotten in a movie about it.
The Chinese coming across the river? Glossed over. No discussion of why.
Chosin Reservoir? One of the single worst parts of the entire war? Perhaps of all wars? “It’s pretty bad down there.”
Again, the pedigree on this film is impressive, and clearly everyone seems very invested in making the movie, but despite all of that, it plays simply as… okay.
Earlier I reminded you of my background and my general enthusiasm going into these types of movies, and I begin to wonder if perhaps I am harder on films like Devotion as a result. I don’t know. I do know that I’m pre-disposed to like films like this.
Look, the movie is fine. General audiences will, or should, enjoy it for what it is. What it isn’t, however, is done. There were so many missed opportunities along the way, so many chances to add depth and meaning to an otherwise by-the-numbers show.
Between that and the overall pacing of the film, Devotion is a “miss” for me, though your mileage may vary.
Devotion hits theaters on November 23 and stars Jonathan Majors, Glen Powell, Christina Jackson, and Serinda Swan.
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