Birdy

1984 movie

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Childhood pals Birdy and Alfonzo deal with their difficult war experiences, the former losing his humanity as he becomes more and more avian in a mental institution while the latter struggles to hold on to his own sanity. Through flashback, their odd and possibly homoerotic relationship and feathery adventures are traced.

If you can only see one movie in which Matthew Modine shares an intimate moment with a bird, this should probably be it. Modine's really very good as Birdy. While there's not exactly a wide range of emotions with the character, he pulls off what must have been a tough role physically while understanding the quietude and naivete of the character. Nicholas Cage, on the other hand, is wildly unpredictable, predictable, I suppose, since he is America's worst actor. Peter Gabriel (this was his first soundtrack; the far superior work on The Last Temptation of Christ came later) sounds really dated. There are a lot of memorable scenes, including a bit of a jokey ending, and some other scenes that are shot beautifully, but as a whole, Birdy is a little uneven and a little too long. Although a lot of this crosses the line into dopey and oddly overly-sentimental territories, there are a lot of surprisingly touching and tender moments as well. Sandy Baron (the guy with the astronaut pen in the Seinfeld episodes) is great as Nicholas Cage's dad.