A love triangle is not the kind of subplot that I prefer in war films, because naturally I prefer

submarines as both plot and subplot.

What is it about a war movie that so often invites these conflicts into them?

Often it's a messy love triangle pitting fly boy against fly boy for the love of a nurse

or an angry wife left at home who can never

understand man why I got to go back out there for another tour and sometimes it's a

woman who simply needs to know what expendable means.

It could be that these characters and storylines are unappreciated because they're relegated to the periphery.

After all, would you rather see fighter planes taking off from aircraft

carriers or the fed-up wife taking the kids to her parents for a while? I know what I

choose. What makes the English patient different is that it elevates the love triangle story

into the A story turning war into a place where this romance can play out and fully develops the characters using

nonlinear storytelling. It's like if Pulp Fiction was a film your mom could

jack it to. Anyway, Ray Fiennes plays almashi, a sort of Indiana Jones type if Indiana Jones was also

into the cure.

He's got the hots for a Kristen Scott Thomas's Catherine Clifton, who's going behind the back

of her husband Jeffrey, played by Colin Firth.

Jeffrey's got a much better airplane than Amishie, which kind of makes you hate him

until you see how dirty Catherine does him.

And you don't know if Jeffrey knows until it

suddenly becomes very clear when he decides to use his plane in a way we can never

forget. But alliances are what this movie is all about.

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