Critics reviews

This kind of low-budget ensemble piece is what Schumacher has always been good at... ["Tigerland" is] a beautifully crafted, brilliantly acted and gently moving film that only occasionally lapses into sentimentality... Demonstrating again that Schumacher firing on all cylinders is one of Hollywood's most versatile craftsmen, this is a classy little film worthy of comparison with any other Vietnam flick.

It's grainy but slick, skating the surface of life 'in the second most horrible place on Earth', always choosing the cheapest angle and easiest cop-out. But a young, unknown cast... put up a vigorous, passionate show, and there's one landmark performance [Colin Farrell's] to cut out and keep.

Despite his usual ability to spend more time on set design than he does on actors, Schumacher handles the more intimate setting with great skill, aided by some great acting, deft cinematography from Darren Aronofsky's cohort Matthew Libatique, and a phenomenally charismatic central performance by unknown Irishman Colin Farrell, [who] more than earns the plaudits which have been regaled upon him for the role.

Schumacher's contribution in costume design, scriptwriting and directing has been in the tradition of mainstream Hollywood ("Batman & Robin," "Dying Young"), although there have been moments ("Falling Down," "A Time To Kill") when a grittier side emerges. "Tigerland" is far beyond this, a genuine piece of filmmaking that does not compromise for the sake of entertainment.

''Tigerland'' just feels disingenuous. All the profanity and sadism of military training can't disguise its secondhand sentimentality. Every time it starts to find a jagged, naturalistic rhythm it pauses for a big stagy scene of speechmaking and choked-up emotion.

It's not unlike the first half of "Full Metal Jacket," though less of a theorem than Kubrick's vision. Schumacher uses a gritty handheld style - standard but unobtrusive - and gets a testy lead performance from Farrell as the charismatic rebel. Involving but inconsequential.

Though it doesn't break much new ground thematically, "Tigerland," Joel Schumacher's Vietnam War movie, is a tautly focused, well-executed drama that represents his most coherent and satisfying work since 1993's "Falling Down..." In many respects, “Tigerland” is [Schumacher's] most independent and experimental work, as well as the closest a Hollywood movie has come to adopting the tenets of Dogma 95.

Determinedly low budget and filmed sometimes confusingly in an in-your-face, almost documentary style, this is potent screen drama with a genuinely real feel about it.

Despite melodramatic lapses — the gripping action recalls Walter Hill’s 1981 "Southern Comfort" — this is Schumacher’s most ambitious film since "Falling Down" in 1993, and it plays to his strengths with young actors.