When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

This film really affected me emotionally since the first time I saw it. I began to wonder how come it didn't make more noise than it did in the box office. Movies like this are certainly not every day commodity in Hollywood. It is perhaps Kevin Costner's best role and the most serious one as well and came at the end of his golden era, which in itself is rather poignant when you think about it. It also stars now-internationally famous Elijah Wood and the less famous but equally capable Lexi Randall as his children. The movie is set sometime in the late 60's/early 70's in the South of course.The War that the title refers to is not just the Vietnam War which Costner's character has just returned from but also, in his case, the war to win back your respectability and status. And that's really what this film is about-everyone's fighting for status and respectability. Wood's character faces a struggle in form of the nasty Lipnicki boys who bully and harass everyone who approaches "their" territory around the reservoir with the water tower. He fights to keep his right to go there against overwhelming odds. His sister Lidia befriends two black girls and is therefore seen as a pariah among other white girls in the school and has to fight for status and respect, while her black friend Elvadine does the same but against even worse odds. Costner is struggling to find a job after not being able to get back to his old one and this struggle makes him very frustrated. But he never retorts to violence, except when the equally nasty father of the Lipnicki boys physically threatens his son. Yet he takes pity at his motherless children and treats them kindly even after they hurl verbal abuse at him. It is a really emotional, at times heartbreaking movie, especially since the ending is rather tragic. Lidia provides the narration which enhances the dramatic effect of the film. Costner's touching speech to his son against violence and fighting is also one of the film's highlights and underlines the pacifist message of the film. It's a shame this film wasn't seen by more souls, otherwise maybe the world would be at a better state than it is. This movie should be shown every month on TV if it was up to me. It is about finding out that fighting never solves anything, unless it is fighting against injustice and with words, not fists or guns.

The War is a low-key period and mood piece, with some depth. It gives Kevin Costner something useful to do with his propensity to take himself seriously (often too seriously), but the film belongs to the young Elijah Wood.Stu (Wood) and Lidia (Lexi Randall) are the children of Stephen (Costner) and Lois (Mare Winningham) Simmons. They are a poor family, aspiring to better themselves, but their ambitions have been obstructed by the baggage Stephen has brought back from Vietnam. The two children take themselves off to build a treehouse. In the course of this, they end up in conflict with the poor white trash Lipnicki children from the neighbouring scrapyard.This slight premise actually generates a story which is gripping, constantly holds the attention, and which draws parallels between the war Stephen has returned from, the war which develops between the Simmonds and Lipnicki children, and which subtly poses the question of what is worth fighting for.All the actors here give wonderful performances, without exception, but the children are particularly good across the board. And, having said that, it is not unfair to single out Elijah Wood. At the age of 13, he does not show the promise which led to later high profile roles: rather, that promise is already fully realised here. He is magnificent.

During one summer in the late 1960's, a treehouse in rural Mississippi becomes the symbolic heart behind a tug-of-war between a freshly-scrubbed group of school-kids and a bunch of bullying, junkyard teenagers. Predictable and somewhat overreaching family-oriented drama shoehorns in Kevin Costner as the father of two of the central good kids; he's just back from Vietnam and still hears the choppers, but we know he's in big trouble once he puts everything on the line to take a dangerous mining job. Mare Winningham plays his wife, who frets over every penny but tells her daughter not to badmouth her dad (the man has dreams, after all). There are lots of heart-to-heart chats, a visit to an old ramshackle house that might one day belong to the family, and a battle for that fort in the tree which never quite leads anywhere. Mostly, this is a noble, decent picture with precious few surprises, the exception being director Jon Avnet's decision to prolong the scenes of bullying, with the deep-seated anger eventually spilling over to the adults. It's like an episode of "The Waltons" crossed with "Stand By Me". *1/2 from ****

As a teacher of scriptwriting I am using this film to demonstrate the art of dialog writing in a setting students and viewers don't see often. The dialog is authentic to the deep south, believable, has just the right amount of profanity and colloquial terminology, and is character specific. You can't easily exchange the speeches between characters and have scenes that work despite the fact all the characters are from the same rural community--try it and you'll see what I mean. In addition, the structure of the film is a fascinating study with its multi-layered plotting and casual way the story begins to unfold. At first, it seems this is a film without a plot--just a series of character studies--but the plotting eventually becomes apparent and its complex structure involves the viewer without grabbing you with a hook or obvious "problem to solve." Overall it's a fine example of how to write an involving, insightful message film.