FTA (1972)

Absolutely brilliant

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

So after a year of enduring a "long wait" listing on Netflix, I finally got FTA in the mail yesterday and just watched it on DVD. A chronicle of Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland's travails through the Pacific Rim with their fellow players for the title tour during 1971, we not only see them performing their skits and songs, we also see the disillusioned soldiers commenting on how they don't really understand or like the orders they're having to take during the then-current events of the Vietnam War. I was especially fascinated by the Philippines segment as both of my parents are from there and had left it long before that time. I liked many of the songs that were performed. The skits, not as much, but there were some amusing ones like Sutherland and a fellow player's play-by-play commentary of war as if they're at a football game! It seemed to drag near the end but still, I'm glad I watched FTA. Update: 10/5/14-There's a nice extra of Ms. Fonda talking about her experiences during the FTA tour. Well worth seeking on the disc.

Insubordination set to music. Occasionally incisive but fatally overlong documentary follows Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland as they lead a merry group of "subversive radicals" to areas outside of military bases in the Pacific Rim during December 1971; their mission is to perform an anti-military vaudeville show for disgruntled American GIs, complete with skits and songs. Their amusing, bitter-tinged satirical protests aside, there is a genuine understanding here for the plight of soldiers caught in the web of Vietnam, conflicted over what they're ultimately fighting for. The film has been edited with canny precision in order to be both entertaining and enlightening, though it makes its points in the first hour and then runs an extra thirty minutes. The issues raised are heated (particularly the racial factor, as blacks felt they were unfairly being targeted by the military as easy prey), though the preaching on-stage has been kept to a relative minimum in order to give the soldiers a fun evening. Many of the young men and women who attended these shows (and those who participated) took a definite risk by being branded as communist sympathizers or undemocratic malcontents, making "FTA" an edgy, often uneasy experience in hindsight. ** from ****

FTA is a time capsule that should only be opened by those who lived through it, and even then, maybe not...This is the story of a group of actors and actresses who toured around the world playing near US military bases with a show called FTA for "Free" The Army. The acting troop is lead by Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland. The film is a combination of performances and interviews with the GI's from the bases. Its nothing you probably haven't seen before in other ways, heart felt songs about how we love the soldiers but hate the war, general protest songs, skits about how absurd the war is and general silliness. Very little of it actually holds up as funny or touching, although some of the ideas work in structure if not execution, Donald Sutherland doing a play by play of a battle as a football game is very clever, but not very funny.I completely understand why this film hasn't been seen in 30 years, it simply is not very good. I doubt highly that this film would have ever played well to any group other than those near the army bases at the time. Its a starry eyed version of a college frolic.The naiveté of many of the actors is very hard to take. The "war is bad" attitude they have is nice and simple, but when mixed with the uncertainty expressed by the soldiers who are actually in harms way, the show comes off too sweet. The film shows clearly why Jane Fonda is hated by many people and still called "Hanoi Jane", since she comes off as a spoiled rich girl who doesn't really have a clue as to what is going on in reality. Donald Sutherland, for what ever reason, seems to carry a weight and understanding most of his fellow performers don't, and I felt he had a better grasp of what was going on.I wanted to like this film, especially owing to some of the parallels with the present war in Iraq. I was hoping to find some kernel of truth to take away, some insight into a country at war with another country and itself, and instead I found just a quaint period piece that was never in touch with anytime, even its own.I can't recommend anyone see this, unless you are a Fonda or Sutherland completest or if you are a student of the Viet Nam war and its effects on the home front.

This film doesn't seem to be in the official filmographies for either Jane Fonda or Donald Sutherland. It is easy to cast stones at the youthful excesses of the cast of this awful movie but I am glad that some of the theatre I was responsible for in college was not filmed. The ensemble filmed a series of sketches performed outside of army bases in the Pacific Rim and although I agree with the leftie politics espoused, there is nothing of interest here. I would rather watch Congress perform "Oh, Calcutta" WITH the nude scenes than sit through this mess again.