''Guy X'' is a 2005

black comedy Black comedy, also known as dark comedy, morbid humor, or gallows humor, is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally considered serious or painful to discus ...

war film directed by

Saul Metzstein Saul Metzstein (born 30 December 1970) is a Scottish film director. He won the British Academy Scotland New Talent Award for best director in 2002 for ''Late Night Shopping''. Metzstein is the son of Isi Metzstein, the renowned modernist arch ...

, based on the novel '' No One Thinks Of Greenland'' by John Griesemer. The movie stars

Jason Biggs Jason Matthew Biggs (born May 12, 1978) is an American actor and comedian. He is best known for playing Jim Levenstein in the '' American Pie'' comedy film series and Larry Bloom in the Netflix original series '' Orange Is the New Black''. He al ...

Natascha McElhone Natascha McElhone (; born Natascha Abigail Taylor, 14 December 1971) is a British actress. She is a graduate of the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. In film, she is best known for her roles in '' Ronin'' (1998), ''The Truman Show'' (19 ...

Jeremy Northam Jeremy Philip Northam (born 1 December 1961) is an English actor and singer. After a number of television roles, he earned attention as Mr. Knightley in the 1996 film adaptation of Jane Austen's '' Emma''. He has appeared in the films ''An Ideal ...

, and

Michael Ironside Frederick Reginald Ironside (born February 12, 1950), known as Michael Ironside, is a Canadian actor, producer, director, and screenwriter. He is known for playing villains and "tough guy" heroes, and has also portrayed sympathetic characters. E ...

Plot

It is 1979, four years after the end of US involvement in the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

. US Army Corporal Rudy Spruance is mistakenly sent to Qangattarsa, a remote base in

Greenland Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland is t ...

still attributed to the

United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

(despite that service being converted to the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...

in 1947), instead of his official posting in

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

. He soon finds out that his records have accidentally been replaced by the records of a Corporal Martin Pederson, who has been sent to Hawaii. The base is occupied by a co-ed battalion of US Army misfits, many of whom have been stationed there for over five years, doing little more than drink and sex their way through the overwhelming boredom. The only apparent military duty is to unload and reload a supply plane every couple of months. The base has been commanded for many years by the near-insane Lt. Col. L. G. Woolwrap, supported by his Aide of three years, SFC Irene Teal, his erstwhile girlfriend. Teal points out that it does not make much difference who he really is, nor where he is based, as it all just functions as service time. Working under the name Pederson, as the base's new Public Information Officer, Spruance starts an intimate and personal relationship with Teal. While exploring he finds out that underneath the base is a secret and highly classified hospital ward. The ward houses the last six surviving, unnamed (other than letters, including W, X, Y, Z), brain dead and very physically damaged soldiers from a secret Vietnam War mission in October 1973. When Spruance/Pederson stumbles upon the ward, he develops a rapport with "Guy X", who has lucid moments that no one else knows about. Spruance sleuths out that then-Col. Woolwrap had been the leader of the mission, and has been in command of the

palliative care Palliative care (derived from the Latin root , or 'to cloak') is an interdisciplinary medical caregiving approach aimed at optimizing quality of life and mitigating suffering among people with serious, complex, and often terminal illnesses. Wit ...

base ever since – having signed the letters to the families of the ward patients stating that they had died in combat and that their bodies were irretrievable. On one of his clandestine visits to the ward, Spruance meets an unnamed plainclothes operative from the

Department of the Army The United States Department of the Army (DA) is one of the three military departments within the Department of Defense of the U.S. The Department of the Army is the federal government agency within which the United States Army (U.S.) is org ...

, who confirms that the soldiers are "classified loose ends, and exercise in patience", as they wait for them to die. Guy X dictates a letter to Spruance, for the wife of one of his men. Spruance sneaks the letter out on the next supply plane. The letter has an impact as some weeks later, at the height of the 24 hour darkness of the

winter solstice The winter solstice, also called the hibernal solstice, occurs when either of Earth's poles reaches its maximum tilt away from the Sun. This happens twice yearly, once in each hemisphere ( Northern and Southern). For that hemisphere, the winte ...

, the Army orders a sudden and rapid shutdown of the base due to "compromised security". The same mysterious operative appears, telling Spruance by name (as they have clarified his identity) that the remaining "Guys" will be disposed of (in an undescribed way). Spruance and Teal find Guy X under his bed in the otherwise abandoned ward, and answer his request to see the outside world before he dies. Just as Guy X dies in the snow, Woolwrap finds them and tells Spruance and Teal that he will not abandon his men, killing himself with his sidearm. The two just make it to the last evacuation plane, where his friend Cpl Lavone informs them that he has created official paperwork giving them new names and ranks (similar to the original Spruance/Pederson mixup). As the plane flies away from Greenland, "General" Lavone asks the small group which base, in which (warm) country, they wish to have designated in their "new" orders.

Reception

The film has received a rating of 36% on review aggregate website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

based on eleven reviews.

Cast

as Corporal Rudy Spruance / Corporal Martin Pederson, Public Information Officer *

as SFC Irene Teal, Lieutenant Colonel Woolwrap's Aide *

as Lieutenant Colonel L.G. Woolwrap, Commanding Officer * Sean Tucker as Corporal Lavone, Rudy's Friend and Astute Scrounger *

as Guy X, Wounded Vietnam Veteran

Awards

References

External links

* {{IMDb title, 0408828, Guy X Films set in Greenland 2005 comedy-drama films 2005 films Films scored by Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson 2005 comedy films 2005 drama films English-language Canadian films English-language Icelandic films 2000s English-language films