The Great Santini (1979)
Average Rating: 7.9/10
Reviews Counted: 18
Fresh: 17 | Rotten: 1
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: N/A
Critic Reviews: 1
Fresh: 1 | Rotten: 0
liked it
Average Rating: 3.6/5
User Ratings: 2,792
Movie Info
Bull Meechum (Robert Duvall) loves fighting almost as much as he loves the Marine Corps. Profane, cocky, and arrogant, he's a great fighter pilot -- and he knows it. His boss hates his guts, but knows that if he's going to straighten out his lagging squadron, Meechum is the man to do it. The story and irony of The Great Santini is in Meechum's total intolerance of family life and fatherhood. Meechum has a lovely, supportive wife, Lillian (Blythe Danner), an earnest, likeable son, Ben (Michael
Oct 26, 1979 Wide
Nov 23, 1999
Warner Home Video
Watch It Now
Cast
-
Robert Duvall
Bull Meecham -
Blythe Danner
Lillian Meechum -
Michael O'Keefe
Ben Meechum -
Lisa Jane Persky
Mary Anne Meechum -
Julie Anne Haddock
Karen Meechum -
Stan Shaw
Toomer Smalls -
Brian Andrews
Matthew Meechum -
Theresa Merritt
Arrabelle Smalls -
David Keith
Red Pettus -
Paul Mantee
Col. Virgil Hedgepat... -
Nancy Black
Cheerleader -
Joe Dorsey
Coach Spinks -
David Frankham
Captain Weber -
Al Ernest Garcia
Pedro -
Paul Gleason
Lieutenant Sammy -
Lew Horn
Captain Brookout -
Bill Nelson
1st Cousin -
Michael Rougas
Colonel Muillnax -
Michael Strong
Colonel Varney -
Ronnie Cross
Honor Guard Sergeant -
Bennett Liss
Corporal Atcherly -
Jan Stratton
Mrs. Weber -
Lisa Collins
Cheerleader -
David Simmons
Basketball Player
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All Critics (22) | Top Critics (4) | Fresh (17) | Rotten (1) | DVD (2)
This is one of those special films that moves effortlessly between tension, tears and laughs ... Robert Duvall's performance runs neck-and-neck with his Lonesome Dove turn as his career best.
Two-dimensional and minor.
An emotionally devastating drama with a first rate performance from Robert Duvall.
Robert Duvall and Michael O'Keefe turn in powerful, Oscar nominated performances in this familiar family melodrama about tyrannical marine-father who bullies his sensitive son so that he can become a real man.
Brilliant.
Duvall as rough, tough Marine in downer story of family conflict
Fantastic performances by Duvall and O'Keefe highlight this father-son tug-of-war.
The Great Santini is a convincing portrait of the battles between a military man and his coming-of-age son.
Offers a whole lot more than just Duvall's flawless performance.
Audience Reviews for The Great Santini
Super Reviewer
A slow-simmering "sleeper" of a film, The Great Santini wavers between promising drama and goofy afterschool special. Robert Duvall plays "Lt. Col. 'Bull' Meechum" (the "Great Santini", although it's never explained what that means exactly), a drunken, abusive airforce lieutenant not accustomed to civilian life with his ever suffering family. Blythe Danner adopts a southern accent to play Lillian, Meechum's resolutely devoted wife. She looks at her husband with a hero-worshipper's eyes, yet doesn't necessarily forgive his abusive 'persona'. But it's the father's relationship with oldest son, Ben (Michael O'Keefe- best known for his role as "Danny Noonan" in "Caddyshack") that is the real focus of the story. The son seems to do everything he can to please his father, but it's never good enough. In a scene directly lifted and used in "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me", Meechum repeatedly hits his son in the face with a basketball, taunting "Are you gonna cry now? C'mon, squirt a few", and "1-2-3...cry! 1-2-3... cry!" after the son dares to beat the father in a game of one-on-one. The father treats his whole family as if they were a platoon of grunts, barking orders, calling his sons his "favorite daughters", waking them up at 3am, in short, making their life a bootcamp hell. The movie begins with the Lieutenant picking his family up and moving them down to the deep south (his latest deployment is teaching flight combat to a class of pilots) and from there, the movie splits it's time between the family's inter-relations and the bigotry and racism of the 1960s. The basketball theme returns later in the movie, as the father orders the son into doing something against the rules (and his own moral judgement) and the son does so, at the expense of his team and himself. It's perhaps one time when the fathers' judgement is shown to be publically fallible, and it triggers something in the son. Later, when Ben rushes off to save his black friend, "Toomer" (Stan Shaw) from town racist "Red Petus" (David Keith) (where they come up with these names, I don't know), he disobeys his father's direct orders. This movie moves, at various times, from light-hearted comedy to serious drama (and not always with a smooth transition), and I can't say the supporting cast is always up to the acting level the drama requires. The writing helps alot, as most of the characters aren't one-dimensional, especially the Great Santini himself, Lt. Meechum. He's a mean son-of-a-bitch, but it's not an intentional hatred, any more than a pitbull intends to be vicious: it's just the way he was bred. In the end, we're left wondering if the family ever really loved him, or just wanted him gone. The script also falters at the end, though, as we get 3 or 4 false endings, and by the fourth we are just praying for it to end already.
Super Reviewer
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