Robert Duvall’s Bull Meechum—or “The Great Santini,” as he calls himself—marches through life as if he was at war in The Great Santini. The problem is, it’s 1962 and Meechum is stuck training Marine pilots on a South Carolina military base during peacetime. To compensate, Meechum turns his home into a training ground, as well, barking orders at his wife (Blythe Danner) and four children, leaning especially hard on his teen son, Ben (Michael O’Keefe), until something breaks. Based on a Pat Conroy novel and directed by Lewis John Carlino, The Great Santini comes across as clumsy in many of its scenes, especially the attempts to weave in a socially conscious subplot involving a local Black family. Still, you have a literally commanding Duvall at the center of it, wearing that uniform like a second skin. He’s more than willing to play Meechum as a monster of a father, while also giving hints, in small moments, that this is a man who has had tenderness of any kind ground out of him by a macho, mercenary system.
(3/29/2026)
