Goodbye America

Rating:
Summary: Remembering the P.I.
Review: As a former Navy Vet who spent more than 6 years in the philippines this movie brought back a lot of memories. I left just a couple years before the base closure. While this movie was not 100% accurate some of it was right on. Especially the blackmail attempt, and the semi-accidental killing of the filipino. While I was station-dito there were more than several instances of Filipine Marine or locals and Navy or marine sentries shooting each other and worse. The women were very enticing its true many of my friends including myself brought home Filipina brides (16 years and counting). I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and will definately buy it on DVD. BTW if you are reading this and remember me for P.I... drop me an email.

Rating:
Summary: Finally, a Phil. movie about USA that is taken seriously
Review: To my great surprise, this is actually one of the few Philippine based films I've seen where Americans aren't stereotyped as ridiculous-looking cowboys with broad-brimmed hats and cheesy western accents. Many Filipino movies unfortunately include American characters and poke fun at them, in a pathetically inaccurate and deeply misleading way. But this film didn't, and so I took it seriously. Based on the background of the plot regarding American soldiers stationed in Subic Naval Base, this is a fairly accurate portrayal of the characters and the real people whom they were loosely based on.

Nevertheless, the story and plot are entirely fictional. There's definitely some romantic drama involved in this movie, particularly concerning an interracial affair between an American soldier and a Filipina. On the other hand, there's also some action and a strange twist of events as one of the US soldiers turn psycho and try to blow everything up. So in terms of plot summary, I wouldn't call this movie as ingenuous. The story is rather predictable. So it is largely because of this that I gave the review 3 stars.

However, I do admire how Filipino filmmakers have done a wonderful collaboration to produce this piece which I may say could generate some serious pride in Philippine filmmaking. The cinematography rivals that of the big-budget US films, and I know from a fact that much effort was made to produce a truly porfessional and epic scale movie like this one. So this DVD would be okay to have in your collection, if you are interested in learning more about the Philippines and its foreign policy towards the US. It's not a historical documentary, but it's a good watch. Plus, where else could you see a movie with beautiful Filipino actors and actresses as well as acclaimed actors from the US put together?