The General
The General
After being rejected by the Confederate military, not realizing it was due to his crucial civilian role, an engineer must single-handedly recapture his beloved locomotive after it is seized by Union spies and return it through enemy lines.
Rowan Krzysiak reviewedJanuary 6, 2025
I was all about ready to lay into Buster Keaton having seen two pretty shitty movies held aloft as classics and then I watched 'The General' and it helped reframe him a little for me.
I naturally and perhaps unfairly drew comparisons against Chaplin to which Keaton has no chance of matching. Too often it seems he has the 'Family Guy' disease of just shoving in a joke or set-piece abruptly without it really serving much purpose toward the wider context at which Chaplin was the king. However, where these jokes also fall flat, the set-pieces and trickery are often startling and impressive. The stunts are also so raw that the treachery is real.
So as for 'The General' well...here the set-piece essentially is the wider conext. It's not far off an hour long train-chase with every stunt and situation possible thrown at it. It remains entertaining throughout with a couple of moments that actually had me gasping.
He's not particularly a storyteller or a clown and his screen presence is weak. It is as a human prop, driving the on-screen action where he is most successful and as a wholly action-packed and punchy movie I recommend this one. I am however also unlikely to watch another Keaton movie.