Taps

Director: Harold Becker
Year Released: 1981
Rating: 1.0

At Bunker Hill Military Academy (which is actually the Valley Forge Military Academy in Pennsylvania, where J.D. Salinger went to school), the students (which include Timothy Hutton, Tom Cruise and Sean Penn) idolize their leader General Bache (George C. Scott), but when he has a heart attack and leaves the school (after shooting a local thug) and the Board of Directors votes to sell the establishment, some of the cadets turn it into their own armed fortress.  I know they thought they were being slick in taking Golding's novel and changing the setting, but the decision of the students to go rogue is hastily arrived at and it (unwittingly?) turns them into loathsome villains - when Hutton gets punched by his own father, I appreciated that on a level that isn't intended.  There are too many accidental shootings and egregious moments to tolerate it - Cruise's character goes berserk in order to "end" the movie - and I could fully understand if actual military people saw this and were, if not offended, quite annoyed: it acts like these places of learning warps young people into becoming warlords.  Or maybe it's just the lack of girls....