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Long before Reese Witherspoon or Nicole Kidman produced their own material, Bette Midler was calling all the shots on her productions. In 1985, she signed a blockbuster multi-movie deal at Disney’s Touchstone Pictures, making her the highest-paid actress of her time. But in addition to a massive paycheck, she also wanted to be empowered to make decisions. Midler launched her company All Girl Prods. to steer her own soon-to-be hits, such as “Beaches,” “For the Boys” and “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood.”

“I had always felt from the time I started in the business that there was a kind of bias against women in positions of power,” Midler tells Variety on a recent afternoon in Los Angeles. “If you went to a pitch meeting, you’d often be the only female in the room.”

Midler, now 73, loved the feminist name of her new enterprise. Her producing partner, Bonnie Bruckheimer,...

''For the Boys'' should primarily play for the girls. This big, fluffy, red-white-and-blue Bette Midler blazer should strut out with a snazzy boxoffice gait for 20th Century Fox. While this All Girl Productionwill likely dazzle enough mature girls to carry it to a ''Beaches''-level boxoffice tide, its somewhat soapy constitution and its often shallow sweep of the last 50 years of U.S. war and social history will swamp many viewers.

The best part of ''Boys'' is, well, the girl herself, Midler as Dixie, a smart-talking, smooth-singing USO entertainer shot straight to fame by her World War II performances.

This Dixie, as you'd guess, is no wallflower: She's a smart, sassy, Mae West-type dynamo who not only sees the big picture but has got the moxie to kick in the pants anyone who can't see beyond their own self-interest; in this case, her senior song-and-dance partner, Eddie Sparks (James Caan), who's never quite tapped into the notion that World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam and all other ''limited engagements'' were not just mere backdrop to the main event, namely his patriotic performances for the troops.

While it's tempting to blast off a 21-popcorn-box salute to the filmmakers for attempting to tell a compelling personal story through the prism of the last 50 years of U.S. history, it's discomforting to view wholesale sequences that reverberate with about as much depth as a Desert Storm victory parade.

For the most part, namely the personal story segments, as Dixie and Eddie hit their high notes and scrape their bottoms, screenwriters Marshall Brickman, Neal Jimenez and Lindy Laub's script rings true, snapping with energetic humor and picking up the colors and uncertainties of the different times.

Unfortunately, this ambitious film is weighted down by its over-bulky, 145-minute frame; director Mark Rydell, while wonderfully pinpointing many grand-scale particulars in his scope, also allows the film to wallow in redundant, superficial sap.

Despite ''Boys' '' bloated nature, it's full of oomph, namely Midler, who struts her considerable stuff to the staccato-steppin' max. While she's at her funnest when dropping bawdy bombs on all the stuffed shirts, Midler's acting range is clearly as wide as her vocal range. The dark torment of Dixie's waning years, when she feels she's lived beyond her time, are deeply touching -- a testament to Midler's capacity to reach down and get to her character's low notes.

Caan, while somewhat uncharismatic as the young Eddie Sparks, similarly pulls off a solid performance: Caan reveals the wondrous, as well as the hideous, components to this superficial showman's successes. Lending solid support is George Segal as the duo's brainy, underappreciated writer.

In this big-bunting production, technical contributions are generally superior, with bars and stripes to costume designer Wayne Finkelman for the cross-all-wars threads and to composer Dave Grusin for the big-band blasts.

FOR THE BOYS

20th Century Fox

An All Girl Production

A Mark Rydell Film

Producers Bette Midler, Bonnie Bruckheimer, Margaret South

Director Mark Rydell

Screenwriters Marshall Brickman, Neal Jimenez, Lindy Laub

Story Neal Jimenez, Lindy Laub

Executive producer Mark Rydell

Co-producer Ray Hartwick

Director of photography Stephen Goldblatt

Production designer Assheton Gorton

Editors Jerry Greenberg, Jere Huggins

Costume designer Wayne Finkelman

Music Dave Grusin

Executive music producer Joel Sill

Musical sequences devised by Joe Layton

Casting Lynn Stalmaster

Sound mixer Jim Webb

Color/Stereo

Cast:

Dixie Leonard Bette Midler

Eddie Sparks James Caan

Art Silver George Segal

Shephard Patrick O'Neal

Danny Christopher Rydell

Jeff Brooks Arye Gross

Sam Schiff Norman Fell

Luanna Trott Rosemary Murphy

Running time -- 145 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

(c) The Hollywood Reporter...