Birdy (Matthew Modine) is the weirdo kid in a working class Philadelphia neighborhood. Al Columbato (Nicolas Cage) becomes his friend. Birdy introduces Al to his love of pigeons. They're both sent to Vietnam. Birdy returns in psychological distress after a month MIA. Al returns after suffering wounds to his face. Birdy's doctor finds Al to help in his treatment.These are two great performances. Matthew Modine transforms physically and also mentally. Cage is the conduit between the audience and Birdy. He's not necessarily in the easier role at the least. They're both equally amazing. This isn't a movie about big plot developments. It's watching the obsessive Birdy going deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole.

Arguably Alan Parker's best film, "Birdy" stars Mathew Modine and Nicholas Cage as a pair of friends who are shipped off to Vietnam and then come home disfigured and traumatised.Told in flashbacks, the film focuses on Modine's character, nicknamed Birdy, an introverted, polite, sensitive and endearing kid who becomes obsessed with birds to such an extent that he eventually believes himself to be one.Many audiences are baffled by Modine's character, viewing him as a madman or nut-case, but the film's point, made clearer in the William Wharton novel upon which the film is based, is that Modine's retreat into a kind of metaphorical bird cage is a result of a ghastly "adult" world which the sensitive kid rejects. Through various symbolic episodes, Wharton and Parker sketch the world as a horrible place at worst, illogical at best. Birdy is so dumbfounded by the inanities of human society (and biology) that he turns his nose up to a beautiful girl's breasts. They're just mammary glands, he shrugs.Birdy's desire for flight, for escaping a kind of cruel corporeality, are cut short by the Vietnam war. He's shipped off, sees untold horrors, and then returns to America believing himself to be a bird. He's then locked away in a mental hospital. In other words, the war accelerated Birdy's desire for escape. Vietnam's horrors pushed him over the edge, pushed him into a kind of comfortable fantasy land where he no longer has to confront a humanity he deplores.With Birdy drifting further and further away from humanity, his best friend Al, played by Nicholas Cage, struggles to nurse him back to health. It is only when Al breaks down and confesses his own hatred of the world, that Birdy realises that he is not alone and returns from his self imposed avian exile. The film's point: you're not alone, the world violates everyone, everyone suffers, so step out of the box, release your ignis fatuus and hold somebody's hand. Yes, I'm making this stuff sound cheesier than the actual film is.The film is mostly worth watching for Modine and Cage, both of whom turn in a couple of excellent performances. Modine is all internal, invisible pain, while Cage is extroverted, scars on his flesh and tongue. The film is itself a tragi-comedy, a difficult mood to capture. But Parker's does well. He tapes into the nervous energy of youth, the pleasant glow of young friendship, and wisely tones things down when the film ventures into darker territory.8/10 – Parker specialises in overrated, obvious and overcooked dramas. This film is a bit different, though, thanks largely to Modine, Cage and Wharton. Worth one viewing.

Imagine a movie where one of the main characters is highly annoying and inscrutable, and the other main character is average, boring and yet also inscrutable. Now imagine they're best friends even though the annoying one doesn't really seem to give a damn and the average one has no understandable reason for his apparent deep love for the annoying one. Throw in some facial bandages on Nic Cage (I guess they want to take his face off) and random scenes of animal abuse, you and you have Birdy. This movie is mostly charmless and pointless. Even the score, which was composed by Peter Gabriel, sounds like some rinker dink low talent crap. This score suits the movie, it's lame and unmemorable. I guess the music did sometimes bring a heightened tension to things; even though nothing would actually happened in a scene, the thudding drum beats still quickened my heart rate a little.I don't have many good things to say about Birdy. It was slightly interesting at points. Nic Cage did a fairly good job of delivering a relatively normal character, but the story gave the character so little motive or meaning. The ending could have been worse /Spoilers/ I actually liked that Birdy didn't "fly" to his death, even though that would have been a rather fitting way to end the character, it would have been depressing and just made the movie seem like an even bigger waste of time. /End Spoilers/Mainly this movie annoyed and bored me. I was unable to relate to much of anything. Certain animal scenes disturbed and troubled me. I don't feel there is much point to this movie. So unless you just like watching an obsessed birder get freaky or you just really want to see Nicolas Cage play what may be his most restrained role, I recommend you skip Birdy.

Two young men (Matthew Modine and Nicolas Cage) in pre-Vietnam, small town America become friends despite one boy who seemingly lives in a dream world: he's obsessed with birds, and fantasizes about flying. Alan Parker directed in a keen, outré manner, but also with a very heavy hand; several sequences which might have been strong (a surprise visit to a slaughterhouse, a bird's death after flying into a window) instead become extreme examples of Parker's preening style, teeter-tottering madly between vulgar bravado and sappy, false sentiment. Modine is a strong, focused actor, but this leading role is rather woebegone--culminating with an exceptionally uncomfortable scene where Birdy has a flying wet-dream (many viewers might give up on the film right there). Cage's role--the sensible one--isn't as showy (or obvious), yet he's the one keeping this flighty material grounded and he comes off better than Modine. The whole movie palls in the last stretch, ridiculously blaming the war for much of Birdy's behavioral problems, and ending with a jokey bit that will either make you laugh or scoff outright. ** from ****