Streamers

If I can save one person from throwing away one hour and fifty three minutes of their lives watching this drek, then the ten minutes I'm going to take to write this review will be worth it. First, I've heard of this play/film nearly all of my adult life. Slow night. So I watched it. It has been pejoratively re-titled "Screamers" by many I've heard talk about it. I knew it had a gay theme and so I thought that "Screamers" referred to another pejorative phrase, "screaming queen", as in a very flamboyant gay man. THAT, even done badly, would have made for a more interesting film than this piece of junk. "Screamers" refers to THE FACT THAT THEY SCREAM THEIR DIALOGUE FOR THROUGHOUT MOST OF THE MOVIE. Dialogue that, by the way, has never occurred naturally anywhere. So, if you like hearing actors SCREAM dialogue, that more resembles refrigerator poetry than it does any naturally occurring human communication, for almost two hours, then have at it.

I am a former usmc recon special forces sgt. The marine corp drill team are great but the army drill team in the movie are fantastic. The best you'll ever see. They are the best in the world and show a splendid disply here. I salute them.

Lengthy, lethargic and lackluster Altman lecture that might have played better in 1968, instead of 1983. Today, it seems positively prehistoric. The dialogue is relentlessly moribund and depressing, as recruits "chat" throughout the film. I'm sure Robert Altman was aiming for a claustrophobic feel to STREAMERS; but it never escapes the viewer that they're watching a closed set play, instead of a movie. By the way, is there anyone left on the planet that doesn't know people die in war, and they should be avoided??? Much like this movie. Not recommended

As has been already said in so many words, this movie is a bit "stagey," with Altman sticking so close to the play instead of taking advantage of the movie aspect. Perhaps as a result, this might have been great to watch on stage, but it took forever to watch on TV. And it is very dated, with lots of racial and sexual orientation slurs. The acting was very good but again hampered by strictly following a script for a play. The setting in the barracks becomes tedious before the halfway mark, and the relatively few actors or especially extras in the background make it look too minimal. Historically, this is probably worth watching, but it is a bit tough to get through.

the honesty is the basic virtue of a film who is a precise image about army, homophobia and war. a form of manifesto. but more subtle and unmerciful and giving the no doubt message in the right terms. a film about masks and vulnerability. about prejudices and about silent. in fact, a film about freedom. simple, direct and out of excuses. and this did it special. because it propose a uncompromising view about a situation who is far to be a secret. because it did not verdicts. only a coherent picture of an institution, about fears of few young men and the dialogue who becomes a large corridor. and the acting is real inspired.

Perhaps it shows my ignorance but I like movies that tell a story with some kind of point and a credible story line. This picture had several great ideas but they were so poorly strung together that the movie did nothing but get more and more annoying. The characters were unbelievable, their actions made no sense and they reacted in bizarre ways. Some examples... Two drunken sergeants playing hide and seek in the rain, a soldier claiming to be queer and the other soldiers not believing him, one soldier stabbed by another and the onlookers too busy talking to get help for an exceedingly long time. I would most definately not recommend this film. Except to film makers as an example of how NOT to tell a story.

This is an audacious undertaking by Robert Altman: I've seen a lot of films with a single setting, but rarely one confined within literally a few square feet (of an army barracks). Altman succeeds in making this intimate, and sometimes intense, rather than simply claustrophobic, though there aren't really any new insights here about either homosexuality or the army (the movie's two chief topics). The performances are all excellent and justifiably praised (and awarded). Altman has done better, but he has also done a lot worse; "Streamers" is at the very least worth one viewing. **1/2 out of 4.