The outlines of the plot are fairly basic. Guy Hamilton, a journalist played by a young and impossibly appealing Mel Gibson, arrives in Jakarta amid the political turmoil of 1965 Indonesia. Green and without contacts, he nevertheless lets his ambition lead the way and enlists the help of Billy Kwan (Linda Hunt), a dwarf photographer who sees potential in the newcomer. After initial success in landing an exclusive with the country's top Communist leader, Guy meets (via Billy) Jill Bryant, a British embassy worker played by Sigourney Weaver. Thus begins a love story with a possible Communist revolution as its backdrop. In fact, it becomes a love triangle of sorts, with Billy playing the matchmaker and master manipulator before taking his tragic turn as protestor and martyr for the people. With Billy gone from the scene, Hamilton finally figures out what he really wants and races to the airport to escape with Bryant just as the country descends to chaos.
First off, I want to give this film credit where credit's due. The look and feel of the film is extraordinary. The cinematography makes you viscerally feel what it's like to live in the tropics. Hell, even the air conditioners in this film sweat (from the condensation). There's also the selective use of the color red to break up the monotony, from the red walls of the journalist bar to Billy's Hawaiian-style shirt, and to the scarves and insignias at the Communist rallies.
The casting is impeccable. Mel Gibson confirmed himself an international star with his role, and Sigourney Weaver is suitably regal while generating plenty of heat with Gibson, despite her British accent sometimes taking an early leave. The biggest coup, though, goes to the casting of Linda Hunt as a male dwarf, Billy Kwan. More than mere stunt casting, Hunt gives the performance of her career and absolutely inhabits the role. In supporting roles, Bembol Roco is memorable as Hamilton's Indonesian assistant, but Michael Murphy overdoes it as the stereotypical jerk-American reporter, Pete Curtis.
So where do things go wrong? It's not the plot, really. The politics are murky and a challenge to follow, but films don't fail because they're challenging. Weir doesn't even overtly take sides and make his film a polemic. However, his Western assumptions seep in, and that's the flaw of this film. About a half hour in, this becomes a love story between two statuesque foreigners, with the chaos of revolution a mere backdrop to serve our lovers' passion. Cynical, but this is storytelling.
When Guy Hamilton first arrives in Jakarta, it's utter chaos to his foreign eyes. The crowds, traffic, shouting, rampant poverty, are all overwhelming to the senses. Kwan remarks that to visit the Jakarta slums for the first time is to be a child again, and in this new environment Hamilton is a wide-eyed child. That's all well and good—an interesting jumping-off point. But where it sinks is when he meets Weaver's Jill Bryant and it becomes a conventional Western love story. And conventional Western love stories need resolution, so obstacles need to be swept aside. When the obstacles being swept aside are the actual Indonesians, things get uncomfortable. It's not overtly offensive, but it's deflating. This film could've been so much better than that.
The most obviously glaring example of this sweeping aside occurs with Billy's ultimately futile act of protest and death. To protest the dictator Sukarno's uncaring tolerance of his nation's poverty, Billy unfurls a banner from a hotel window in the path of Sukarno's motorcade and is immediately assaulted by security and tossed out the window, his banner folded up before Sukarno even sees it. This act of martyrdom may or may not have been necessary to the internal logic of the character. That's debatable. But it was absolutely necessary to the love story. Billy was in love with Jill, and the story had get rid of him before Guy and Jill could truly be together. The traumas Billy experienced to get him to that desperate point were just manipulations by the writers to get us to buy his basically committing suicide. When the love story is this cliched, the manipulations become obvious.
Up till this point I could tolerate or even overlook it because other aspects of the film were so appealing, but the ending left a bad taste in my mouth. After an unsuccessful push by the Communists and then a military coup, Jakarta was descending into chaos with roundups and public executions. Jill Bryant was scheduled to be on the last plane out, which is where we see Hamilton's final race to the airport. He finally gets through a hair-raising struggle through security and boards the plane, to be met by Jill atop the steps where they embrace. At this point Indonesia becomes a convenient backdrop, something to leave behind now that that they have true love. Indonesia's purpose is served. This wasn't the intended message, but it was the implicit one. And it inhibits me from really enjoying this film.
