“The Last Samurai” could be the first big budget Hollywood movie to express heart-felt sympathy for the bloody, demented and self-destructive values of Muslim fundamentalism.

Not that director/co-writer Ed Zwick (“Glory”, “The Siege”) makes any direct reference to Al Qaeda or Bin Laden or any other exemplars of historic or present day Islamic radicalism. Nevertheless, his heavy-handed anti-Western/anti-Imperialist messages combine with his lyrical glorification of an ancient, exotic martial and religious tradition which emphasizes bloodshed and martyrdom to project an uncomfortably contemporary (and topical) resonance. When his expatriate hero Tom Cruise shrugs off the question “Why do you hate your own country so much?” as too obvious to merit an answer, he seems to speak for Zwick’s own profound alienation from all aspects of modern American culture.

The action unfolds in the 1870s and centers around Cruise, deploying his familiar swagger as an arrogant, alcoholic veteran of the War Between the States who now makes his living hawking weapons for a major gun company. He’s haunted by flashbacks of his Indian-fighting service on the Great Plains after the war, in which he apparently participated in a horrific massacre of innocent women and children. In San Francisco, an Irishman (incongruously played by Scotsman Billy Connolly, with a bogus brogue) introduces the hard-drinking Cruise to some Japanese industrialists who plan to import U.S. weapons into their country and want to hire the bibulous war hero to show the Emperor’s army how to use them.

Cruise arrives in Yokohama (quaintly rendered through Computer Generated Imagery) and befriends bemused Englishman Timothy Spall, while working alongside a cruel and brutish colleague (Tony Goldwyn) from his killer cavalry days, to train the newly recruited Imperial troops. Despite Cruise’s insistence that the raw soldiers aren’t prepared for battle, they march off to confront a force of rebellious Samurai in the provinces. In a poetically charged and formidably ferocious scene of combat and carnage, the larger force with guns and bayonets faces annihilation from fearless traditional warriors in their medieval armor, with swords and arrows.

Cruise survives, badly wounded, and impresses the Samurai band with his reckless courage. They take him as a captive to their remote and picturesque village in the mountains where his various wounds, physical and spiritual, gradually heal; he even goes through hysterically over-acted alcoholic withdrawal. The charismatic leader of the Samurai rebellion (the tall, impressive Ken Watanabe) speaks perfect English (naturally) and represents the highest conceptions of dignity, self-discipline, sacrifice and honor. Cruise responds to these traditional ways, and to the gentle, timeless rhythms of village life, as an invaluable antidote to his inner emptiness. Clearly, he sees in the Samurai chieftain the same sort of Noble Savage he fought in the Indian Wars — a stoic warrior, committed to fight to the death for the ancient ways of his people even if the entire tide of history runs against him. The connection between the Ken Watanable character here, with his mystic sense of doom in combating modernity, and both Sitting Bull and Bin Laden feels unmistakable. Al Qaeda echoes also appear in the Samurai leader’s implacable warfare against traitorous elements of his own people (the pro western Japanese in the movie come across as especially slimy and loathsome) who want to cooperate with an American commercial agenda.

In any event, the epic battle scenes, gorgeous camera work, lavish sets and costumes and impassioned acting almost make up for the ponderous, plodding pace of the picture. Once Cruise gets a good look at the lithe and beautiful sister (Koyuki) of the Samurai honcho (and the widow of a warrior that Cruise himself killed in battle), it’s utterly obvious that he’s going to cast his lot with the rebels and turn against his corrupt old friends. Since everyone (especially those who’ve seen the spectacular trailer) knows that Tom Terrific will presently shift loyalties, there’s an almost physical ache as you yearn for the conflicted commander to get on with the whole inevitable business.

In all his movies, Cruise projects his own trademarked sense of cocky, feral intensity but even his best efforts feel disastrously wrong for the part. Despite the fact that his birth date suggests that he is approaching middle age, this redoubtable (and genuinely talented) movie star remains too fresh-faced, youthful and inescapably clean cut to play the cynical, self-destructive, drunken, burn-out case described in the script. This means that his supposedly startling transition into fervent belief and disciplined devotion to the Samurai cause lacks dramatic heft, emotional impact or deeper significance. Harrison Ford or Tommy Lee Jones or even Clint Eastwood would have represented much better (if less commercial) choices for the role.

If nothing else, Zwick deserves credit for generating audience sympathy for the all-but-inexplicable determination of the Samurai swordsmen to die gloriously for their cause, charging on horseback or even on foot against volleys of rifle fire, howitzers and, ultimately Gattling guns, with their elegant, graceful, 500-year-old weapons. The climactic lunge at the vastly superior, vastly more up-to-date enemy echoes the heraldic imagery of the great “Battle on the Ice” in Eisenstein’s “Alexander Nevsky.” Unfortunately, it also reminded me of the popular poster displayed throughout the Middle East after 9/11, showing the turbaned Osama bin Laden, with flowing beard and scimitar drawn fiercely over his head, galloping against his American enemy on the back of a charging white steed.

Even though Zwick references a little known moment in Japanese history (and takes very considerable liberties with the record) anyone familiar with the actual story of the Empire in the 20th century will feel an additional sense of queasiness and discomfort in watching this film. The “Last Samurai” unapologetically glorifies a semi-suicidal, militarist spirit with deep roots in Japanese culture. A mere two generations after the events fancifully depicted in the film, that fiercely nationalist spirit expressed itself in a world-shattering orgy of slaughter and brutality against Chinese, Koreans, Vietnamese and Phillipinos, not to mention horribly mistreated British and American POWs. By what twisting of perspective does the movie expect us to root against the Westernization of a nation whose failure to renounce its own martial and medieval heritage produced devastating consequences for much of humanity? To associate Samurai traditions of “Bushido” with the soul-stirring, post-war cinematic epics of Kurosawa, but not with the epic destruction of World War II, displays a lack of historical memory that the Samurai themselves could never countenance. Rated R for lavishly graphic and gory battlefield violence and some passing harsh language. TWO AND A HALF STARS. 

Michael Medved hosts a nationally syndicated daily radio show focusing on the intersection of politics and pop culture.  He's the author of eight non-fiction books, was co-host for 12 years on "Sneak Previews" on PBS, and is the former Chief Film Critic for the New York Post.