Rafe McCawley: Ben Affleck	Danny Walker: Josh Hartnett
Evelyn Johnson: Kate Beckinsale	Colonel Doolittle: Alec Baldwin
Betty: James King	Dorrie Miller: Cuba Gooding Jr.
Admiral Yamamoto: Mako	President Roosevelt: Jon Voight
Earl: Tom Sizemore	General Marshall: Scott Wilson
Captain Thurman: Dan Aykroyd	Commander Minoru Genda: Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa
George: Howard Mungo	Admiral Kimmel: Colm Feore
Director: Michael Bay

30 Second Bottom Line: Two Army Air Corps pilots, who have been best friends since childhood, become involved in a romantic triangle with a nurse they meet during World War II. One love affair starts well before the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the other begins when that pilot is listed as killed in action while on a fighter mission in Europe, shortly before the attack in Hawaii.

Story Line: Pearl Harbor opens in 1923 when Rafe McCawley and Danny Walker (Ben Affleck and John Hartnett) are young boys, playing in a crop dusting airplane that they accidentally take off in for the first time. They are hooked on flying from then on.

Jumping forward to wartime activities in the late 30's and early 40's, we learn that Hitler is wreaking havoc in Europe. America is thought to want to do anything but take up arms and fight another world war with the Europeans. While peace negotiations are ongoing with the Japanese, America cuts off the flow of oil to Japan. With only 18 months of oil supply left (remember, Japan is an island with very limited natural resources), they see their way of life threatened. Knowing that many of the resources of the Pacific Naval fleet have been diverted to help our European allies fight Germany, Japan sees what appears to be an opportunity to enter, what they believe is, an inevitable war with the United States. The U.S. appears not to want to fight, as our guard is down and we have fewer armaments in place than usual.

Rafe goes to Europe to become part of the elite Eagle Squadron with the British Air Force, and fight in the Battle of Britain. He and Evelyn (Kate Beckinsale), a Navy nurse, have fallen in love, and she is not pleased with his decision to leave. Of course, he promises to return. Danny and Evelyn are transferred to that Pacific paradise, Pearl Harbor. They comfort and console each other when Rafe is reported killed in action.

By the time that Rafe reappears, Evelyn is in love with Danny and the clock is ticking loudly on the impending attack on Pearl Harbor. On December 7, 1941, bombs begin dropping, torpedoes are sailing through the water and American ships are blowing up, breaking in half or turning over. On land, buildings are getting machine gunned or bombed, and in general, the unprepared and unaware are being literally pounded into the ground and the sea. In the film, this sequence goes on for almost forty minutes, which is nearly a quarter of the entire film.

The terror of the men being attacked on a ship is captured when one man, who knows time is running out says, "This is it." Few words are spoken during the time immediately after the attack ends. We are aware of the stillness and the quiet. We are moved by the realization of what has happened, and just then are we able to start thinking about the future. The Americans thought at first that this was an early practice run; it is now known as an attack upon US soil that will never be forgotten in American history.

Only a few months after the bombing, Americans make a retaliatory attack against the Japanese. This not only keeps the action going strong, but also allows the love story, with its three principals, to find a resolution that brings an acceptable peace to Rafe, Evelyn and Danny.

Tell Me More About It: Normally I don't rate a movie three stars which has such a predictably corny love story. Although I care about the characters, the emotion is more skin deep, rather than down in your soul like most felt about the love story in Titanic.

Various clichés surface throughout the film. One of the problems with clichés is that by definition, we've heard them before. The flip side of that is if you are telling a story that most of us have heard and seen before, how do you tell it without words you've used before? But a cliché' to one person may be "new" news to another. I may know that "A brilliant man finds a way not to fight a war," or that "Victory goes to those that believe in it the most and for the longest period of time." As adults we may have read "Any smart enemy hits where you think you are safest," or that "A top secret mission is one where you get medals that are sent to your relatives." These are all platitudes, but many of the youngsters that will see this film do not know that. If there is one thing that we learned on December 7, 1941, it's that the best defense is a good offense...a cliché worth saying over and over and over.

The weakest portion of the film is that we know Evelyn has a big secret that will be revealed at the appropriate time to one of the men she loves. The entire romantic aspect of the film was more than a little contrived, too convenient and in general, hard to accept.

That said, Kate Beckinsale was a good choice for the romantic lead as we've already seen Affleck and Charlize Theron together in Reindeer Games, and we've seen him with Gwyneth Paltrow in Bounce. Both of those can best be called mediocre performances. Here, having a fresh face allows us to better accept her innocence and Affleck as a leading man not just going through the motions.

There are, however, some things the film has going for it that more than make up for its weaknesses. More than anything, it pays an outstanding tribute to the men and women, black, white and Asian that fought to win World War II.

A chill ran up my spine as I watched Dorrie Miller (Cuba Gooding Jr.), an African-American, move from his cook's job, where he had no weapons training, to placing himself in the embrace of a machine gun and begin firing at the attacking planes.

Although my father in law's name is Hal Wall and not Dorrie Miller, this is the exact experience that happened to him on December 7, 1941. In the 31 years I'd known Hal, he never acknowledged his heroism, until I read about it in the newspaper on the 50th anniversary of the bombing in 1991, shortly before he died.

Over 3,000 men and women died because of the attack on Pearl Harbor, and of those, more than 1,100 remain to this day, entombed in the battleship Arizona. Hal was fortunate to have survived that attack, as was his brother, who was also there on that fateful day.

Jon Voight as President Roosevelt and Alec Baldwin as Colonel Doolittle deliver exceptionally strong supporting performances. Doolittle demonstrates patriotism involving a bombing mission for which President Roosevelt personally presented him The Congressional Medal of Honor. Voight gives an Oscar caliber performance. We've all heard the words "…a date which will live in infamy-," and in this film, Roosevelt shows compassion and leadership that are still required for America to be the free country it remains today.

Pearl Harbor brought us into a World War, not just a war against Asians. Even when the term Jap is used in the movie, denigrating as it is, it has a place there. That was the language used then. We need not take a revisionist view of history. How else can young people come to understand where we have been and what we have done to each other, so we are not doomed to repeat our mistakes? If we can start to look at our diverse population without the assumption that a person with slanted eyes, or dark skin, or even an accent, is not a citizen, we're making progress. When we believe that all our citizens are patriots, we just might have the hope of a future with a greater chance for peace, rather than war.

Kate Beckinsale: The Golden Bowl	Cuba Gooding Jr.: Men of Honor
James King: Blow	Alec Baldwin: State & Main
Tom Sizemore: Bringing out the Dead	Scott Wilson: Shiloh
Dan Aykroyd: House of Mirth	Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa: The Art of War
Howard Mungo: A Bold Affair	Colm Feore: Sum of all Fears
Michael Bay: Armageddon	Jon Voight: Tom Raider
Ben Affleck: Bounce	Josh Hartnett: Town & Country
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