This drama, which I just finished watching tonight, is easily the most engrossing 5-plus hours I've ever spent in front of the tube. I rented all three tapes, and watched the whole movie start to finish.
The story starts out a little slow, and it's initially hard to get with the plot and really follow it, which is understandable, because it essentially tells 3 stories: one unfolding in Pakistan, one taking place in London, and one in Hamburg, Germany. But once you get the gist of where they're going with it, and once you realize that the stories are all inexorably interconnected, it just turns into nothing short of mesmerizing viewing.
Excellent acting, lively and thought-provoking script, and fantastic location photography are just some of the reasons to watch this film. I also can't think of a movie where I cared so much about the fates of the individual players in the story. Even at over 5 hours of playing time, I was never the least bit bored. I couldn't get enough of these people and where they were all going to end up. I hated to see it end: I could have watched for another 5 hours.
Though released in 1989, it is nevertheless still a timely film to watch, because the drug (addiction) problem it addresses, as well as the global scope of the trafficking and smuggling of illegal drugs - no, these haven't gone away in the 12 or so years since this picture came out. It's still as relevant a picture today as it was when first released, and, since a goodly part of the film takes place in Pakistan (and also, somewhat, in Afkhanistan) it merits viewing if only for the sake of presenting a better glimpse of that region where the western world is currently waging war against terrorism.
LOTS of memorable stuff in the movie: There is a touching scene where Lithgow, a hardened anti-drug minister from England, on a mission to eradicate heroin shipments emanating in Pakistan, is ultimately induced by the simple Faisal to smoke an opium cigarette (and yes, he gets a little wacked). There is a funny scene in a gun merchant's market stall in a Pakistani town, where the shop keepers are so proud of their wares that they send a boy out into the street with a brand new machine gun, who then calmly fires numerous bursts into the air to demonstrate the gun. Nobody in the streets even thinks twice about it. There is a heroin junkie so wasted from needle damage to his veins that he is literally reduced to shooting heroin into the side of his male organ - "only place left on my body where I can find a vein," says he, with complete indifference.
There are so many other memorable scenes in this movie I can't even begin to list them all. I simply urge you (if you are a serious movie viewer) to find a copy of this and watch it and see for yourself if there aren't things in it that not only boggle your mind, but linger in your mind long after you've seen it (heck, I only just saw it tonight, but I can assure you, I already KNOW that many of the images in this film will be with me for a long time to come.)
The story starts out a little slow, and it's initially hard to get with the plot and really follow it, which is understandable, because it essentially tells 3 stories: one unfolding in Pakistan, one taking place in London, and one in Hamburg, Germany. But once you get the gist of where they're going with it, and once you realize that the stories are all inexorably interconnected, it just turns into nothing short of mesmerizing viewing.
Excellent acting, lively and thought-provoking script, and fantastic location photography are just some of the reasons to watch this film. I also can't think of a movie where I cared so much about the fates of the individual players in the story. Even at over 5 hours of playing time, I was never the least bit bored. I couldn't get enough of these people and where they were all going to end up. I hated to see it end: I could have watched for another 5 hours.
Though released in 1989, it is nevertheless still a timely film to watch, because the drug (addiction) problem it addresses, as well as the global scope of the trafficking and smuggling of illegal drugs - no, these haven't gone away in the 12 or so years since this picture came out. It's still as relevant a picture today as it was when first released, and, since a goodly part of the film takes place in Pakistan (and also, somewhat, in Afkhanistan) it merits viewing if only for the sake of presenting a better glimpse of that region where the western world is currently waging war against terrorism.
LOTS of memorable stuff in the movie: There is a touching scene where Lithgow, a hardened anti-drug minister from England, on a mission to eradicate heroin shipments emanating in Pakistan, is ultimately induced by the simple Faisal to smoke an opium cigarette (and yes, he gets a little wacked). There is a funny scene in a gun merchant's market stall in a Pakistani town, where the shop keepers are so proud of their wares that they send a boy out into the street with a brand new machine gun, who then calmly fires numerous bursts into the air to demonstrate the gun. Nobody in the streets even thinks twice about it. There is a heroin junkie so wasted from needle damage to his veins that he is literally reduced to shooting heroin into the side of his male organ - "only place left on my body where I can find a vein," says he, with complete indifference.
There are so many other memorable scenes in this movie I can't even begin to list them all. I simply urge you (if you are a serious movie viewer) to find a copy of this and watch it and see for yourself if there aren't things in it that not only boggle your mind, but linger in your mind long after you've seen it (heck, I only just saw it tonight, but I can assure you, I already KNOW that many of the images in this film will be with me for a long time to come.)