It’s always nice to see that Fred Schepisi is still working, even though the veteran of the Australian New Wave hasn’t fully connected with a piece of material since 1993’s Six Degrees of Separation. At his best, he can be a master of widescreen composition (he worked wonders with his Canadian locales in Roxanne); at his worst, he can switch off completely and give you It Runs in the Family.
I prefer Schepisi when he’s dabbling in comedy, but he still sounds like a smart hire for Beast of Bataan, an adaptation of Lawrence Taylor’s A Trial of Generals; it’s about the court martial of Masaharu Homma, who was executed in 1946 for allegedly instigating the Bataan Death March. Homma’s prosecution was handled by General Douglas MacArthur, who so aggressively pursued the case, it’s uncertain as to whether Homma received a fair hearing. The chief council for Homma’s defense, John H. Skeen, Jr., argued that his client was railroaded, and it looks like this issue will be the focus of Schepisi’s movie (which was written by Chris Carlson and Mark Jean).
It also looks like Skeen will be portrayed by Hayden Christensen, which is a superb reason to lower your expectations. Though William Hurt and Willem Dafoe are "in talks" to join the cast, the fact that I’ve never been able to take Christensen seriously in anything (his embarrassingly mannered Shattered Glass turn included) has me feelin’ kinda tepid on this one. If I have to pin my hopes to Schepisi returning to form for the first time in fourteen years…