REVIEW: Allegory Alert! John Sayles' Amigo Riffs on American Imperialism

The first American voice that is heard in Amigo, John Sayles's ponderous cine-play set during the U.S. occupation of the Philippines at the turn of the 19th century, rips through the air with the brutal dissonance of an artillery shell. The torqued South Carolina accent of actor Brian Lee Franklin -- cursing out the country's "little monkeys" -- announces the arrival of an American squadron in the tiny Philippine "baryo" where they and Amigo remain for the next two hours. Along with an introductory crack about "hearts and minds" made by squad Lieutenant Compton (Garret Dillahunt), that private's twanging epithet puts the audience on Code Orange allegory alert.

What may not be readily familiar to viewers is the history atwork behind Sayles's chosen moment -- when the Spanish-American war carried over to the Philippines, where American troops arrived to help end 300 years of Spanish rule, only to find themselves battling a Filipino insurgency. Rather than digging into a character-driven narrative and allowing the resonances to flow naturally from it, Sayles seemed to begin with a set of inferences to modern American imperialism and work backwards. The result is the double shrift of a thinly sketched background and a story that has trouble standing up on its own.

At the center of that story is the amigo of the title, a local named Rafael (Joel Torre). Rafael is first seen meting out a little village justice over a sweet potato dispute: Firm but fair, he's the undisputed "head