"The Mosquito Bowl" Stings for All the Wrong Reasons
This past week, AFI Fest has been raging on in downtown Hollywood, screening either the American, Californian, or world premieres of some of the industry's most anticipated releases. One of the festival's most star-studded premieres this week was The Mosquito Bowl by Peter Berg, a new film from Netflix that tells the true story of a football game that was played by marines days before their deployment to World War II's Battle of Okinawa. But even with a star-studded cast, a big budget, and the backing of one of Hollywood's leading studios, The Mosquito Bowl has already gained a reputation as one of AFI Fest's biggest fumbles.
The Mosquito Bowl follows the stories of four young marines who are drafted during World War II, all having been previous college football stars: John McLaughry, Bob Baumann, Tony Butkovich, and Dave Schreiner. It stars Nicholas Galzitine, Bill Skarsgård, Ray Nicholson, Tom Francis, and Pat McAfee.
To start with the good, this film looks expensive. The production design and action are flawless, with bombastic sound design that places the audience right on the battlefield. As someone who has seen more than my fair share of war movies, I can safely say that The Mosquito Bowl has some of the most harrowing depictions of combat I've ever seen. The acting is pretty great overall from all of the four main characters. After the premiere screening at the Chinese Theatre, the cast spoke about how much this story means to them, and the responsibility they felt to breathe life back into these real men on screen. That level of respect and effort is easy to see through their performances, at no point are they ever phoning it in. The period costume design by Liz McGregor is also very impressive.
Unfortunately this film has a lot more wrong with it than right. The entire thing is edited bizarrely like a trailer. The sound design tends to be very over-the-top and distracting. As if every scene is meant to sound like they're on a battlefield even when they're not. The color grading is also drab and boring, coating the entire film under this brownish-greenish sheen that's just not visually interesting. The first thirty minutes of The Mosquito Bowl are so poorly done in terms of writing that it feels amateur, which for a studio like Netflix is unacceptable. While the film is ambitious, there is not nearly as much focus on the story as there needed to be. This definitely isn't a mosquito you want to get bitten by...
While Galzitine, Skarsgård, Nicholson, and Francis all give great performances, they weren't working with the best script. There aren't a lot of details that separate them apart as characters, all the audience knows is that they played football at some point, and that's kind of all that separates them from the other young soldiers. It's simply not enough.
As a film, The Mosquito Bowl has a lot of heart, but it's not breaking any new ground, nor does it keep the audience's attention. Which is a shame because the people that made it are so clearly passionate about the story, but lack the vision to do it justice. It's sure to be a hit with your Dad or Republican uncle, but with the amount of exciting, risk-taking films at AFI Fest this year, it gets lost in the shuffle despite its star power and ambition.
