General’s Daughter, The (1999) – Nostalgia Central

This film version of Nelson DeMille’s 1992 best-selling mystery novel is a lurid mess – a Southern gumbo simmering in Gothic cliché.

John Travolta plays CID (Criminal Investigations Division) Warrant Officer Paul Brenner, the Army’s point man in solving the kinky murder of Captain Elizabeth Campbell (the gorgeous Leslie Stefanson).

The daughter of General “Fighting Joe” Campbell (James Cromwell) – an old war hero who is considering a run for vice president  – is found stripped naked, staked spread-eagled to the ground, battered, raped and strangled in the middle of a training field on her old man’s command post.

Paul finds whips, leather and the latest in bondage toys tucked away in the captain’s basement. “You have to boil people now before you can sleep with them,” quips Travolta’s snoop.

The General’s Daughter is severely heavy-going as the usual suspects line up for inspection. There’s the thin-lipped general himself, who seems to be keeping secrets about his daughter’s sexual past; the general’s adjutant, Colonel George Fowler (Clarence Williams III at his creepiest); the base provost marshal Colonel Kent (Timothy Hutton, also creepy); and the commanding officer of Psy-Ops (psychological operations), Colonel Robert Moore (James Woods).

The actors are all set adrift by British director Simon West, whose debut with Con Air (1997) qualifies him for at least the rank of colonel in the army of hack directors from the advertising world who continue working in features without a lick of talent for the game.

That leaves Travolta and Madeleine Stowe, as fellow investigator and army rape counsellor Sara Sunhill, to keep us attractively distracted as the movie dissolves into deep-fried Freudian melodrama.

Paul and Sara are even given an absurd romantic back story that is nonetheless preferable to the S&M nonsense in the foreground.

Six screenwriters were reportedly involved in adapting DeMille’s novel, but only two earn credit: newcomer Christopher Bertolini and Oscar-winning veteran William Goldman (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid).

It’s hard to see what else, beyond money, can have attracted John Travolta to the unrewarding role of Paul Brenner, but he hasn’t been this good since Pulp Fiction (1994).

Warrant Officer Paul Brenner
John Travolta
Sara Sunhill
Madeleine Stowe
General Campbell
James Cromwell
Colonel Kent
Timothy Hutton
Elisabeth Campbell
Leslie Stefanson
Chief Yardley
Daniel von Bargen
Colonel George Fowler
Clarence Williams III
Colonel Robert Moore
James Woods
Belling
Peter Weireter
Elkins
Mark Boone Junior
Colonel Slesinger
John Beasley
Captain Elby
Boyd Kestner
Bransford
Brad Beyer
Captain Goodson
John Benjamin Hickey
Cal Seivers
Rick Dial
PFC Robbin
Ariyan A. Johnson
General Sonnenberg
John Frankenheimer
CNN Anchor
Katrina vanden Heuvel
Deputy Yardley
Chris Snyder
Bomb Van Soldiers
Steve Danton
Rich Jackson
Colonel Weems
Cooper Huckabee

Director
Simon West