Review of The General's Daughter

Hammy, overwrought, and over-the-top, The General's Daughter is still good for some rainy day entertainment, as long as the creepy rape/homicide storyline isn't too disturbing for the viewer.

The cast is the sole reason to look in on this mid-tempo, dark suspense flick. John Travolta, Madeline Stowe, Tim Hutton, James Woods and James Cromwell are all in good form in this paranoid anti-alpha male military thriller.

Released two years after G.I. Jane, this is another look at the changing U.S. military culture, where women are admitted to the elite military academies (USMA, West Point, in this case) and are a growing part of the officer class. This film, unsurprisingly, plays the rape epidemic at these institutions mainly for "thrills" with little in the way of (substantive) commentary. Again, no surprises there, as this is a Hollywood whodunit.