The General's Daughter

John Travolta continues his slide back into naffness in The General's Daughter, a lumbering, self-important picture, with a screenplay co-written by William Goldman. Travolta is Warrant Officer Brenner from the US military's criminal investigation division: a sort of Internal Affairs for the army. He's investigating the grisly death of a sexy, mysterious woman officer, the daughter of a famous general.

It is all supposed to be a scalp-tinglingly horrific conspiracy, but the denouement, when it finally arrives, is silly, prurient and unconvincing, and it is with no little effrontery that this misogynist nonsense is presented in the closing credits as part of an earnest drive to promote women in the military. Travolta's middle age spread is really massive, incidentally: his neck is more or less immobile and he seems unable to move his head without swivelling his entire torso around, as if manoeuvering an aircraft carrier.