MBunge This film is a character study without enough character. The leading male role has no definable personality at all, which is clearly not the fault of the actor playing the part. The leading female role has a striking personality, but hardly does anything in the story. The biggest supporting female role starts out strong and then withers as the movie goes along. The biggest supporting male role is dynamically portrayed, but is pretty much the same stereotype that's appeared in countless other films. Much of the rest of the cast gets a moment or two to shine, which doesn't help a lot because none of them ultimately matter in the threadbare plot that does little but strand each character on screen with little to do.Mark Deloach (Jonathan Tucker) is a rich man's son who causes an auto accident that severely injures a priest (Ed Begley Jr.) and, somehow, causes a teenage classmate (Agnes Bruckman) to become emotionally disturbed. To avoid prison, Mark gets shipped out to the Marines. His drill instructor (Val Kilmer) takes special care to entertainingly whip Mark into a man. In his attempts to make amends to his victim, Mark meets her roommate. Dori Lawrence (Rachael Leigh Cook) is a schizophrenic celebrity who went away to the nuthatch after she started to break down on set and in public.That's the set up. Here's the plot. Mark and Dori fall in love. Their relationship turns out to be bad for Dori's mental health. They break up. Then two years later, after exploiting a national tragedy for a plot point, they get back together and liver happily ever after. And no, I'm really not leaving anything out.Stateside claims to be based on a true story. Well, I can imagine this story was a powerful and moving thing to live through. That doesn't mean it's an interesting thing to watch. Even though the film moves along at a good clip, I lost interest in it about a half hour before it was over because there's just not enough going on. Well, there's stuff going on. However, it doesn't come together in a coherent narrative. I got to a point where I realized an awful lot of what I'd been watching wasn't going to lead anywhere or have any significance.The very pretty Rachael Leigh Cook does a nice job as Dori. Mental illness is too often either overly charming or overly threatening in movies. Cook effectively the appealing intensity and the disturbing erratic nature of someone dancing as fast as they can along the edge of sanity. The relationship between Dori and Mark, a stupid guy the Marines have made so fearless he's unfazed by her imbalance, is the most appealing thing about Stateside.Unfortunately, it's one of only two things that work here. The other being the basic training scenes where Val Kilmer appears to take genuine delight in playing a fit, macho alpha male. His torments of enlistee Deloach are amusing, but nothing you haven't seen before.There are simply too many characters here who have nothing to do but orbit around Mark and Dori. And while Dori is a star who could support many planets, Mark is a burned out cinder. He's a nonentity as a high school kid, completely unexceptional as a Marine-in-training and the only distinguishing characteristic he ever has is his reflexive affection for Dori.Oh, and one other thing. At the end of the movie, Dori and Mark finally break up. About 5 minutes later, the story jumps forward in time two years…and Dori and Mark get back together. I don't care what kind of tale you are telling, you can't have a climactic break-up and feel good reunion take place within 5 minutes of each other at the end of your movie. It either falls flat or gives the viewer a case of emotional whiplash.If you don't care about plot and do care about Rachael Leigh Cook, you might enjoy Stateside. But if unresolved and, frankly, forgotten conflicts and characters bother you, this isn't your sort of thing.

aimless-46 After a disastrous and very short run theatrical release, "Stateside" has been playing regularly on cable for over a year. Playing regularly is somewhat of an understatement as those with a digital cable package can pretty much find it on some channel any day and anytime. Fortunately the film is ideal for piecemeal viewing (watching a scene here and a scene there- not necessarily in sequence until you realize you have seen the whole thing) because it is nicely written and is actually more coherent and entertaining when viewed in little snippets. This is a nice way of saying the film lacks unity and that the whole is less than the sum of its parts. But the parts themselves are well worth viewing.What you have here is an unorganized mix of disparate elements, each typically used by themselves to carry a movie. Start with the standard Freddie Bartholomew (Captains Courageous", "Lord Jeff" etc.) rich kid from a neglectful home, add a bit of reckless prep school teen drinking which injures a Priest ("Cruel Intentions"), plus a boot camp coming of age story ("Full Metal Jacket"), for your love interest insert a female rock star and actress with mental problems ("Francis" and "Girl Interrupted"), and then a return from the war as a disabled veteran ("The Best Years of Our Lives"). Although "Stateside" doesn't work as a whole package and sets the all-time record for credibility problems there is still a lot of entertaining stuff here. Jonathan Tucker is appealing in the lead role and actually brings some credibility to a character going through enough life changes for ten movies. Rachel Leigh Cook basically does her Ruthie character from "The Big Empty", who I suspect is pretty much her real life self. Her Dori character is supposed to suffer from schizophrenia, but if you don't know what that is going into the film, you won't understand it any better after viewing. Apparently the writer thinks anyone who is irreverent, impulsive, and moody must be schizo (then again maybe they are). But since Dori's psychological problems are irrelevant to the plot this doesn't really get in the way of the basic story. Val Kilmer does a good impression of a R. Lee Ermy drill sergeant. Ermy himself has gotten too old for these parts but this allows the director to show a nice human side rather than a simple caricature. Although the lyrics for "Scotty Doesn't Know kept running through my head each time he was featured.The most compelling performance is by Agnes Bruckner, playing the best-named character this decade, Sue "of the Dubervilles" Dubois. Bruckner's scenes sparkle and you rejoice every time she appears. Bottom line, virtually everyone will find something to like somewhere inside "Stateside". It gives you basic training, prep school, girl rockers, mental cases, romance, DWI, hospitals, sex, mansions, and Agnes Bruckner.Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

jmc4769 This movie was in and out of Atlanta theaters in one week-what a shame! It doesn't deserve the short run and bad reviews. All I can say is, if you like romantic movies, try this one on DVD. Stateside has the kind of sweet story that the critics usually hate. It's refreshingly different from most romances. It avoids the typical formula. You know the one, where the girl and guy meet cute, fall in love during a musical interlude, break up, and get back together at the end, typically with the guy racing to the airport to catch the girl at the last minute before she boards her plane. Stateside reminded me of movies that I saw back in the sixties, like The Graduate. Of course, it isn't as good as The Graduate, but it has that kind of off-beat quality. Some of the negative reviews focused on minor issues such as the slow start and continuity problems. Others complained that the dialog was too poetic, but to me that was a plus not a minus. Still others pointed out how unrealistic this kind romance would be in the real world. But haven't these people ever heard of "willing suspension of disbelief?" Besides, countless romantic stories have derived their drama from the fact that the guy and girl are so different from each other. And unlike most 'opposites attract' movies, Stateside doesn't shy away from showing how difficult it would be for these two to have any kind of long-term relationship.These critics apparently missed the point of the movie. It is about a bittersweet romance that would never have happened if not for Dori's mental illness. Both Mark and Dori gave up something important in order to get something they desperately wanted. If Dori had not been mentally ill, she would have married some rock star or movie star. She had to give up that dream because now she is lucky to get any guy, much less a nice guy like Mark. Mark had to give up a lot, too. Before meeting Dori, he probably expected to fall in love with an average but mentally stable girl. He gave up that prospect in order to do something he would have previously thought impossible-have a relationship with a real pin-up girl.Jonathan Tucker and Rachel Leigh Cook are outstanding as Mark and Dori, especially Cook. She plays such a sweet, innocent and guileless beauty that you have no trouble believing that Tucker's character could fall in love with her despite her mental illness. Cook strips away the veneer of civility and gamesmanship that we typically see in Hollywood romances. What she reveals is a very likable character.By the way, the story is based on the director's own life. He was a rich kid who fell in love with a mentally ill actress. He did join the marines and was sent to Lebanon.Stateside won't win any academy awards. It has its flaws, but it is an enjoyable movie with fine acting and appealing characters. I give it 7.5 out of 10.

jimorris "Stateside" is 'based on a true story' and tells the tale of a rich teenager who gets into trouble and is allowed to avoid prison by enlisting in the Marines; he falls in love with a disturbed young woman. We wander to five states (California, Connecticut, New York, North Carolina, and South Carolina) in this disjointed, smoky soap opera. The talented young actors do their best with the mess they are given.GRADE = "C"