Streamers

Based on a play by David Rabe, Streamers examines the American male on the eve of Vietnam. We have those who enjoy playing the violent war games, trying desperately to live up to some idealized version of masculinity (Matthew Modine, David Alan Grier), and then there are the others, a pair of dangerous individuals because their points-of-view and sexual identities cause a disruption of the simplicity of the visions of the former group (Mitchell Lichtenstein, Michael Wright).

To par that complicated thought down to its absolute essentials, Modine and Grier are treating boot camp like a game in which they will emerge out the other side as the typical American male. This ideology is complicated by the presence of the gay Lichtenstein, a character that they don’t want to believe is gay, in Modine’s case a good argument could be made about him suppressing his own homosexual urges. Into this already tense environment enters Wright, a wildly unpredictable and unstable chaos bringer, someone who is at odds with everything society tells him he is and should be. Streamers is already off to richly fertile ground.

But Streamers also came out during a time in which Altman did nothing but make films from stage plays. And these films were frequently awkward things, at times trying valiantly to break free from their stage origins (Fool for Love), or, like here, merely pointing and shooting a camera at the one room setting of the story. And this staginess prevents Streamers from achieving true greatness. No matter how many mirrors or through-window shots Altman tries to throw at it, Streamers always feels like a filmed stage play, not a true cinematic adaptation.

Luckily, Altman has stuffed his four main roles with talented performers. I never really knew Grier could dig so deep or do much beyond broad comedy, so it was nice to see him play a more complicated character here. Wright suffers from some unfortunate stereotyping, far too much of his character is tone deaf jive-talking, but he also gets a few chances as the film progresses to dismantle some of those earlier wince-inducing moments. His big break down at the end is impressive. Modine is oddly playful here, boyishly handsome, more than a little fey, and very solid throughout. But Streamers belongs to Lichtenstein. He is the one character who sees himself clearly, and the absurdity of the situation around them. Sexual, charismatic, and yet vulnerable, Lichtenstein seemed primed to be a big discovery, but maybe the openly gay actor proved too hard to cast after this? I don’t know, but his performance was my great discovery of Streamers.