'Captain America: The First Avenger'

"You're much worse than the Gestapo. They didn't pretend they were defending the free world."

So says Bernie Gunther to the American government agents who have captured him and are attempting to use him as human bargaining chip in Philip Kerr's new novel Field Gray. Gunther is the hero, if you can call him that, of Kerr's series of "Berlin Noir" books. In a summer when Nazis feature large as the villains of choice in mainstream studio films, he has the singular habit of actually being a one, and an oddly sympathetic one, to boot. 

In Field Gray, the fine Mr. Gunther, after being swapped, stolen, used and abused by various governments, turns against the people he thinks most deserve to be triple-crossed. 

You guessed it… it's the Americans. Those apple-pie-eating-mother-lovers get it right in the kisser, and the sweet satisfaction lingers long after you turn the final page of the book. 

I kept hearing echoes of Bernie's world-weary, razor-edged humour all the way through the latest Marvel opus Captain America: The First Avenger. "Bernie, where are you?" I thought. "You are so needed here." 

Bernie's basic philosophy, much simplified, is that hypocrisy wherever it is found, deserves a good swift kick in the face. Although in the case of Captain America, I have the sneaking suspicion that the titular hero might secretly get off on that. 

Operation 'oily sexiness'

In Captain America, the action begins with a quintessential 98-pound weakling by the name of Steve Rodgers (Chris Evans) getting the tar beat out of him. Little Steve is in dire need of some dynamic tension, or perhaps an extra sandwich or two. With a list of ailments as long as one of his noodle-like arms, he is not fit for this man's army. Nevertheless, he gamely tries to enlist in the war effort, over and over again. It is 1942, the Second World War is going gangbusters, and every able-bodied man is out to lend a hand. Unfortunately for Mr. Rogers, his body is not so able. Steve's constant efforts to volunteer are overheard by a German scientist (played by Stanley Tucci) who decides to give the little guy a shot at a top-secret project called "Operation Oily Sexiness."

That's not actually the title, although it sums up what happens. Before you can say "Gee golly whiz!" Steve is infused with a top-secret serum, and stuck in what appears to the world's first tanning bed. He emerges as Captain America, the world's first Avenger! Women take one look and drop like someone hit them in the back of the head with a shovel. Men follow doggedly at his heels, and Nazis shake in their black booties. Super Keen!!! Because as every boy or girl knows, you can't be a super hero until you get big juicy muscles and a boffo outfit. 

Immediately, the Captain is kitted up with a slick red, white and blue costume and sent out on the road with a bunch of dancing cutie-pies to drum up support for the cost of war by pitching war bonds. (Maybe this is a methodology the U.S. could return to pay for the war in Iraq?). "When is Captain America going to kick Nazi keester?" I wondered after one interminable expository scene followed another. I use the k-word advisedly, there is no ass actually kicked here. When the offending Nazis are dispatched, the killing takes place with a shower of blue sparkly bits and pieces, courtesy of new-fangled Teutonic weaponry. Perhaps, this technology is the same used in tampon ads, where anything sanguineous is turned a nice innocent blue. 

Few stakes and little action

Director Joe Johnston tries to inject some pulpy  '40s-style fizz into the proceeding, but the film's lead footed pace never seems to lighten up. One misses the swinging sudsy style of Sam Raimi's Spiderman, where at least the required origin story had some genuine jizz to it. It actually came leaping out of our hero in long ropy strands. Here, the action is as dull as Captain America's bland good looks. Even Hugo Weaving, whose transformation into the Captain America's nemesis The Red Skull might have benefitted from some Priscilla, Queen of the Desert style marabou, can't quite elevate the action to something approaching campy good times. Old Red snarls and sneers and struts about, while Götterdämmerung hammers in the background, but it all feels oddly theoretical somehow. 

The rest of the cast, comprised of A-listers such as Tommy Lee Jones as a standard Army issue curmudgeon, Dominic Cooper as a Howard Hughes clone and Toby Jones, a Nazi scientist with little to do but scuttle and startle, add colour. 

HYDRA, a Nazi knockoff headed up by red head himself, are busily devising plans to march rough shod over the Third Reich, with the help of a glowing block of cheese. The glowing blue cube is actually an ancient artifact left behind by the Norse gods, when they decided to vamoose back to Valhalla. "Maybe the Red Skull and evil Kevin Bacon (late of the The X-Men) could join forces." I thought. "And start an organization of evil noses that seek world domination." The mind wanders during a film like this, where despite a lot of business happening on screen, there is nothing much at stake. There is no threat that Captain America will end up dead by the side of the road. In fact, the entire film is one long extended prequel to lay the way for the upcoming Avengers film, in which the gang's all here. Ironman, The Hulk, Thor, all the boys and their toys, are set to arrive in 2012. 

Desperate hero

Even though Captain America is only one of the many super hero films that have trudged into theatres this summer, the film has the dubious distinction of coming at one of the most unfortunate of moments in U.S. history. With the country eating itself, the debt ceiling about to come crashing down and rising creeping unemployment leaching hope and strength like Dengue fever, America ain't looking so hot these days. Still, plucky Hollywood continues to churn out films that maintain Americans are the good guys. 

It's maintaining the assumption, in spite of a great deal of evidence to the contrary, that America still has any moral high ground upon which to make a stand that makes Captain America difficult to swallow. Or as Bernie Gunther says in Field Gray, it's "the unquestioning assumption of all Americans that they had right on their side -- even when they were doing wrong."

As the exhaustive research cited in the back of Philip Kerr's book Field Gray maintains, the U.S. were never the good guys, nobody really was, not the French, not the Red Army, and certainly not the Germans. Red, white and blue are only colours in a comic book, reality is composed of endless shades of gray. Murky, ambiguous and grim as hell, the real history of what was once called "Good War" has been written about and researched endlessly, yet new information still emerges. If you can bear it, pick up a copy of Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin by author Timothy Snyder, and remember that the Stalin and the U.S. were friendly when it served both their purposes. 

Hypocrisy coated in a candy coloured shell has a weird bitter taste going down. Galling is the correct word. It's increasingly difficult to stomach American pop culture propaganda about saving the world from the forces of evil when they themselves are fighting the darkness from within. Which brings us to the end of the film.

After all that struggle, effort and noble sentiments, what is the end result but the current orgy of corporate malfeasance, bad debt, and bone crushing cynicism. Even Captain America, the ultimate symbol of Yankee can-do attitude is undone by this modern version of the world. Oh, for the days when good was American grade-A beef, and evil wore a crisp black uniform and a giant red head.