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Labels: Alice Braga, film, Forest Whitaker, Jude Law, Liev Schreiber, movie trailer

Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber and Jamie Bell portray the Bielski Brothers who lead a group of upward of 1,000 Jewish refugees in Nazi-occupied Europe. They survive by hiding in the Belorussian forests living meekly and constantly worried about being discovered. They eventually hook up with the Russian resistance and then there's lots of guns and fire and stuff.

This should be a great movie and it isn't.

Daniel Craig, while perfectly fine in many roles involving brooding, violent men, doesn't work here. He can look convincing when he hits a man, he looks like he can put some stank on it. However, he shows here he has a little trouble hitting a man and making us care he's done so. His James Bond physical presence has its place and he's great at it. It simply has no place in a film about Jews scraping a living in a freezing forest.

Opposite Craig is Lev Schreiber who offers what I think is perhaps his best performance. He strikes the right tone for dramatic action. Throughout the film it occurred to me that he should have been cast in Craig's role. This should have been his chance to graduate from supporting to lead role.

The film as a whole is far too long and often too concerned with punching up conflicts. The audience is asked to hop from one crisis to the next, always preoccupied with a moment of peril or someone screaming at someone else that it is hard to settle down enough to really care about the proceedings. By the third act, my interest was exhausted.

Director Edward Zwick (Blood Diamond) not only drags the production out too long, he fails to provide a useful villain. If that wasn't bad enough, he never brings the audience into the living conditions of the refugees. We are told and shown that it stinks to be hiding out in the woods in the dead of winter - we know this. We are never asked to feel how terrible the conditions were, to really have any understanding of their predicament.

Put simply, this is a missed opportunity.




Related Reviews:
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Other Critic’s Reviews:
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Click here to buy your copy of
You Are What You See and learn
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Labels: Daniel Craig, film, Jamie Bell, Liev Schreiber, movie review, World War II

Short Review: You have Wolverine, the coolest of all superheroes. You have him in his own origin movie completely unleashed from those stupid X-Men movies. How do you screw this up?

Well, apparently just like this.



Have you have seen a basketball player break away with the ball and sprint down the court all alone, no one in sight? They carefully, and skillfully approach the hoop and go for a simple layup.

And miss.

That is this movie.

If you have any expectations just assume they will not be met. Hugh Jackman fronts this, what should be the first in a series of Wolverine films. Instead of launching a new franchise, he's the captain on a rocket that explodes on the pad. I take that back, it pathetically fizzles and slowly falls over.

What's wrong? The film never gains any lift, it feels tired and slow. The main conflict doesn't have enough weight behind it because the narrative needlessly shifts from place to place from character to character without settling on a solid, meaningful path.

There's nothing wrong with the performances and there is certainly nothing wrong with the production in general. This is a well made film in many respects. The problem completely lies in the script by David Benioff (Troy) and Skip Woods (Swordfish). If this film would have had a straight, good guy/bad guy storyline and dropped all of the pitstops this would have been a watchable wad of Hollywood nonsense.




Related Reviews:
Hugh Jackman movies
X-Men (2000)
The Fountain (2006)


Other Critic’s Reviews:
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Labels: Dominic Monaghan, film, Gavin Hood, Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Lynn Collins, movie review, Ryan Reynolds, superhero

Be thankful its not presented in Smell-o-Vision.

I suppose if your culture has been raped and burned by corporate thugs leaving your generation with nothing to hang its artistic hat on, it makes sense to keep looking back at a bygone era for direction. This is sad. Honoring a movement that effected the changes that led to the slaughter of untold numbers of Cambodians and Vietnamese. It's cool though, American teens got to party in the mud, so everything good, man. I'm sure they won't discuss the larger global political aspect of these useful idiots, just stick with the marketing plan and sell the music and free love.






Screenwriters: James Schamus (Hulk)
Director: Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain)
Actors: Liev Schreiber (Wolverine), Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Watchmen), Emile Hirsch (Milk), Paul Dano (There Will Be Blood), Imelda Staunton (Freedom Writers) and Eugene Levy (American Pie)

Labels: Ang Lee, Emile Hirsch, Eugene Levy, film, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Liev Schreiber, movie trailer, Paul Dano

Screenwriters: David Benioff (The Kite Runner)
Director: Gavin Hood (Tsotsi)
Actors: Hugh Jackman (The Fountain), Ryan Reynolds (Smokin' Aces), Liev Schreiber (The Manchurian Candidate) and Dominic Monaghan (Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers)

Labels: film, Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, movie trailer, Ryan Reynolds

I have mixed feelings on this one. On one hand the idea of Jewish resistance movement fighting off the Nazis is an interesting place to begin but I see this is an Edward Zwick film. He's a hit or miss guy. He's capable of Blood Diamond and Glory but then again he's also kicked out Legends of the Fall and The Last Samurai. Regardless, it's a certainty the movie will be about thirty minutes too long and lined with emotionally manipulative scenes.

Here's the heart of my concern for the movie: Daniel "James Blond" Craig, Liev Schreiber and Jamie Bell are playing brothers...eh? Brothers? Wha? Why not just have Seth Green, Dolph Lundgren and Conan O'Brien play the roles?




Screenwriter: Edward Zwick (The Last Samurai) and Clayton Frohman (Under Fire)
Director: Edward Zwick (Glory)
Actors: Daniel Craig (Layer Cake), Liev Schreiber (The Omen) and Jamie Bell (Flags of Our Fathers)

Labels: Daniel Craig, film, Liev Schreiber, movie trailer, World War II