Birdy
Director: Alan Parker
Year Released: 1984
Rating: 2.0
Young outsider - modeled after St. Francis of Assisi (like Frank Serpico) - and friend go to Vietnam: one comes back disfigured (Nicolas Cage), the other totally deranged (Matthew Modine), and so Cage tells comatose Modine stories from their past to 'wake' him up. The allegorical aspect of the story is too thin to hold out as long as it's supposed to - the idea of people as birds caught in metaphorical cages - and there are only so many times you can take Cage berating Modine for acting irrationally ("Birdy you're freaking me out!"). Honest question: how did Birdy pass the Psychological Test to be able to fight in war (the military does have standards, right)? This was a much better movie when its material was treated with a lighter touch and called Brewster McCloud.
