So much average

Great Film overall

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Now I've seen in the reviews section of this movie, that people who won't get this movie, doesn't have a heart. I do and I did find this heartbreaking even if this movie wasn't clear for me to understand. I just thought the movie was rather too long and I just couldn't understand what the characters were saying. I have tried to look at some of the scenes again for the second time from the film and I still didn't quite get what the characters were on about. Yes all this relates to aids but I understand there is more then this film can offer. I just didn't get it even if they pushed Richard Gere into it. All I can say here is that not everyone will understand this film and we should accept it!

And the Band Played On (1993)A vivid, well-acted tracing of the history of AIDS from the point of view of epidemiology. That sounds boring, but just the opposite. The intense pressure on the early researchers is part of the drama. And the injustice of the politics getting in the way is important. Most of all, of course, is the terrible suffering of the victims, which is a small but key part of the story.All of this is really well done, no fat to the story, moving along and keeping the progression of events clear. I resisted watching this for a long time thinking it would dry, or that the story is well known and would offer no surprises, but I enjoyed it all. The director, Canadian Roger Spottiswoode, has done nothing else on this impressive scale. Even working with the stellar cast (many famous actors with small roles, and a couple, like Alan Alda, more prominent) requires a kind of juggling and intelligence that's great to watch. Is the movie perfect? In a way, yes, given the choice of subject matter.

American doctors from the under-funded Center for Disease Control scramble to figure out the origin of--and the causes behind--the alarming rate of homosexual male deaths in the early 1980s; as a fatal strain of pneumonia and hepatitis B cases begin appearing, as Reagan-era Washington apparently vetoes the mysterious disease as non-newsworthy, and as the gay community (shown as not one radically adept at helping their own cause) label the early cases as products of the Gay Cancer, the CDC battles with the Blood Industry in coming up with an inexpensive way of filtering out contaminated blood. Adaptation of Randy Shilts' frightening, groundbreaking book was seemingly an impossible undertaking, yet HBO Films and co-producer Aaron Spelling manage to lay all Shilts' information out adroitly and adeptly, with some of the character interaction awkwardly interjected but with most of the principal players doing very well with technical roles. Alan Alda positively revels in the opportunity to play sniveling medical scientist Dr. Robert Gallo, who felt usurped when French scientists initially gained prestige for isolating the virus; as Dr. Mary Guinan, Glenne Headly does some of the best work of her career (while interviewing a sexually promiscuous airline steward, one of the earliest men to fall prey to the disease, Headly is remarkably natural and charming); and Saul Rubinek as Dr. Curran, who initiates the investigation and helps sort out all the jargon, is in masterful form. Some of the high-profile cameos aren't shaped for much satisfaction--they stick out as artifices--such as Richard Gere's bit as a stricken choreographer (it is commendable that Gere is here, yet his movie star aura looms larger than his part). The film isn't compact--it isn't a quick-fix wallow or a time-filler--it is a serious, frustrating, angry movie with no easy answers. And that's as it should be.

1993 saw two movies about AIDS. The famous one was "Philadelphia", but "And the Band Played On" is also important, focusing on the virus spreading in the '80's and how the Reagan administration acted like it didn't exist. If the movie has any problem, it's the number and range of big names. Matthew Modine as Dr. Don Francis is the nominal star, but also appearing are Alan Alda, Phil Collins, Bud Cort, Richard Gere, Glenne Headly, Anjelica Huston, Steve Martin, Ian McKellen, and Lily Tomlin, to name a few.Maybe they felt that they had to make this movie do to the fact that gays were portrayed so negatively in movies for so many years (see "The Celluloid Closet"). All in all, a very good movie. The way that Reagan denied AIDS mirrors how Bush denies global warming.