Reviews

I don't quite know how this movie manages to portray Liam Neeson as a heroic survival expert when all he seems to do is make a series of catastrophic mistakes that ultimately lead everyone (including himself) to be killed.

For a start, in the immediate aftermath of the plane crash when he speaks to the dying man, does he comfort him by saying 'don't worry everything's going to be OK'? No, he tells the poor guy 'You're going to die, you'll never see your wife and children again'. Nice.

He then persuades the other survivors to abandon the wreck of the plane, which could have provided some shelter from the elements as well as being visible from the air should a search and rescue mission be dispatched, and leads this group of ill equipped and injured men through a wolf infested wilderness in sub-zero temperatures. What could possibly go wrong?

I'm not exactly Bear Grylls, but even I could see just how stupid this movie was from the outset. If you want to see an exciting survival adventure watch Touching The Void. But if you want to have a few beers on a Saturday night with your friends and play a 'who's going to get eaten by a wolf next' drinking game, then this is the movie for you...

I went to see this film on the strength of its cast. They and their performances are wasted in this miserable melodrama.

The story is this: Mopey, depressive alcoholic Kathy (Jennifer Connelly) is evicted from her home for failing to pay her bills. It's established early on that her husband left her some months ago, and I have to say I don't blame him; she's a thoroughly selfish and intolerable individual.

The house is sold at auction to Iranian Immigrant Behrani (Ben Kingsley) and his family, and Kathy immediately starts a campaign of harassment against them in an attempt to get the house back. She's assisted in this by sheriff's Deputy Lester (Ron Eldard) who is not only hideously racist, but absurdly dim-witted and gullible since he blindly goes along with everything Kathy wants even though she's clearly mentally unbalanced.

As Kathy and Lester's hate campaign becomes more and more belligerent, Behrani becomes more and more desperate to protect his wife and son from the reality of what is happening to them. Things will not end well. Behrani's son is killed by Lester. Overcome by grief, Behrani poisons his wife before taking his own life. Lester goes to jail for murder. And Kathy, who has caused all this trouble, gives up the house and just walks away...And that's it.

I understand that this film is trying to make a point about race relations in the United States, and the prejudice that Imigrants are often faced with. Unfortunately it's totally weighed down by the heavy emotional drama, two-dimensional characters and contrived, implausible situations. Seriously, there were moments when I wanted to shout at the screen to tell the characters to stop being so stupid!

To summarise, I wouldn't recommend this film at any time unless you're trying to get rid of some unwelcome house-guests. Happy viewing!

I cannot adequately sum up into words the disappointment I felt after watching this film.

England 1935, and 13 year old Briony Tallis thinks there's something funny going on between her older sister Cecilia (Keira Knightly) and their strapping gardener Robbie (James McAvoy). She totally misinterprets several events that take place over the course of a day, and as a result Robbie is sent to prison. Five years later, With Britain at war, Robbie is in the army fighting at Dunkirk. Will he return to Cecelia? Will Briony put things right? Unfortunately, at this point I was past caring.

So what was wrong? For a start, the performances were awful - the idea seems to have been 'why act when you can overact?'. The direction was slow and ponderous. The characters were vacuous and two-dimensional.

I counted half-a-dozen or so scenes that could (and should) have been left on the cutting room floor, they seemed to have no point at all, weren't explained properly, nor did they lead anywhere. I suspect they were only left in to bring the film up to a two-hour running time

Then there were the continuity errors: A Lancaster bomber flying in 1935, six years before they were invented; Robbie losing his boots in one scene, only to be wearing them again in the next; Briony seeing Robbie and Cecilia through the open library door when they clearly closed it behind them when they went in; Briony saying that these events happened when she was 10 or 11, then later in the film saying they happened when she was 13; Robbie's letters, appearing and disappearing on his desk depending on the camera angle...And how deep was the water supposed to be in that garden fountain?????

Worst of all though, was the clumsy and contrived way the 'misunderstandings' were set up. I'm no dramatist, but I could see every one of them coming a mile off.

I'm sure the film-makers would say their film was poetic in its nature, not meant to be taken literally, but that is no excuse; Ed Wood and David Winters said the same about their movies. It also makes no sense for Briony to state at the end that she was telling 'whole truth, without embellishment' when the story is filled with embellishment from the very first scene.

On a personal note, I'd like to hear Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy do a riff on this movie. Perhaps I'll e-mail them....