Better Luck Tomorrow

Better Luck Tomorrow

I am writing this from the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. Four years ago I sat in the Park City Library and watched a film called “Better Luck Tomorrow,” directed by Justin Lin, about a bunch of Asian-American high school kids from affluent Orange County families who backed into crime with their eyes open. It was risky, original filmmaking by an exciting new director.

Now it is Sundance again, and I sit through “Annapolis” so that you don’t have to. Let all those young directors at Sundance 2006 put away their glowing reviews for a moment and train their sad eyes on this movie, for here is a cautionary example. This is the anti-Sundance film, an exhausted wheeze of bankrupt clichés and cardboard characters a movie that has no visible reason for existing, except that everybody got paid.

The hero of the film is Jake Huard (James Franco), a working-class kid from Baltimore who works as a riveter in a Chesapeake Bay shipyard while gazing across the water at the U.S. Naval Academy, which his dead mother always wanted him to attend. His father Bill (Brian Goodman) doesn’t want him to go; he thinks Jake’s too hotheaded to stick it out. But Jake gets accepted into Annapolis off the wait list and spends his plebe year there.

That would be now or then since at one point it’s said that Jake is in the class of ’08. So our Navy seems to be fighting some kind of war somewhere in this old world of ours; but not one word about any such thing ever passes these characters’ lips or enters their heads. The plebes mostly seem absorbed in memorizing longitude and latitude points within Annapolis city limits so they can avoid doing push-ups.

There’s also more than meets the eye when it comes to Jake’s fat African-American roommate, who’s nicknamed Twins (Vicellous Shannon), and there is much suspense over whether Twins will be able to complete the obstacle course in under five minutes by the end of the year. If I had a year to train for that same obstacle course with some brutal Marine drill instructor’s boot up my ass, I’d be able to do it in under five minutes, too and so could Queen Latifah.

The drill instructor is Lt. Cole (Tyrese Gibson), who is a former combat- veteran Marine where he saw combat is two of the words you won’t hear when he returns to it at the end of this movie. I’ve got my money on Iraq. But this movie ain’t about war it’s about boxing.

Yes, “Annapolis” takes as its subject the story of a young man training to be an officer in time of war and makes its entire plot turn on whether or not he can win the Brigades, which is the academy wide boxing championship held each spring. It switches horses halfway through without missing a single misstep: Because Jake has an attitude and because Cole doubts his ability to lead men, they become enemies, and all signs point toward that big final match where Jake and Cole will get to hammer each other in front of everybody.

I forgot to mention the fact that Jake was an amateur boxer before he joined the Academy. His dad thought he was a loser then too. He tells his father he’s boxing in the finals, and of course the old man doesn’t show up. Or maybe the father does show up let’s say he shows up late and sees the fight, and their eyes meet as soon as his son has spotted him somewhere near the top of that vast crowd.

And does he give him that slight little nod that says, “I was wrong, kid, and you’ve got what it takes”? Surely a 2006 movie wouldn’t rehash the Parent Arrives Late for Final Match and Gives Subtle Sign of Recognition scene? Surely a director who made “Better Luck Tomorrow” wouldn’t touch such an old chestnut, which isn’t just off the shelf but down at the thrift store?

Yes, it’s Navy vs. Marines on land in Iraq sorry, no; yes, it’s Army vs. Air Force on sea in Afghanistan except actually what this war all comes down to is one boxing match. Oh, and there’s a big romance with another one of Jake’s commanding officers: cute Ali (Jordana Brewster), who may be 25 years old in real life but looks about 19 here. I have never been to Annapolis, but I believe plebes are not supposed to fraternize/kiss/dance/go who knows where with officers despite having Cute Meets with them after mistaking them for hookers (ha-ha). With help from her and some extra training from Chi McBride as Ali’s uncle-who-is-also-the-Academy’s-boxing-coach (yep), they get Jake ready for his big fight.

This is a movie with dialogue like:

“You just don’t get it, do you, Huard?”

“I don’t need advice from you.”

Or…

“You’re just not good enough.”

“That’s all I’ve ever heard in my life.”

And here is a movie where things are said like “I’m going to beat the other guy until I want to stop punching him.” Is there a little store in Westwood that sells dialogue like this on rubber stamps? There is only one character in this movie who comes alive, whose story means something, whose words don’t sound written: the fat kid. Whose story is infinitely more touching than Jake’s; who comes from a Southern town that gave him a parade before he went off to the Academy, and if he flunks out, Twins can’t face the folks at home.

When Jake’s other roommates move out because they don’t want to live with a loser, Twins stays. Why? His reason may not make audiences in Arkansas or Mississippi very happy, but it does have the virtue of sounding as though it might be spoken by an actual human being.

Watch Better Luck Tomorrow For Free On Gomovies.