Archive

Tag Archives: Rachel Weisz

Enemy at the Gates

April 22, 2014
Film Reviews
11 Comments

Enemy At the Gates 01 Jude Law, Ed Harris, Rachel Weisz, Joseph Fiennes, Bob Hoskins, Ron Perlman, Eva Mattes, Gabriel Thomson, Matthias Habich, Sophie Rois, Ivan Shvedoff
Enemy At The Gates: Stalingrad is being attacked by the Nazis, and after a Russian sniper terrorises the Germans, they send their top marksman from a Berlin Sniper School in for an epic sharpshooting duel. How could a film about a sniper battle be so boring? There’s only a handful of kills and the rest is hammy, over-sentimental, schmaltzy war boringness and distracting “human element” side-story shite. The cast are confusing as shit too: there’s English people with cockney accents playing Russians, American’s doing German “Vith and Ak-scent”, and Ron Perlman (American) trying an English accent in order to fit in with ‘team Russia’ – accent-mageddon. I’m also pretty sure that no Russian ever spoke about “tea and a biscuit”. The look, feel and tone of the movie all reek of something from the 1950s – including bad acting, a poor script, the worst / most awkward love scene of the 2000’s, and a terrible “classic cinema” score that tells you exactly when you should be excited, crying etc. This is a film that starts off like Private Ryan on a budget and goes downhill from there. Utter war-pants.

Score: 2/10

Enemy At the Gates 02 Jude Law, Ed Harris, Rachel Weisz, Joseph Fiennes, Bob Hoskins, Ron Perlman, Eva Mattes, Gabriel Thomson, Matthias Habich, Sophie Rois, Ivan Shvedoff

Advertisement

The Whistleblower

April 5, 2012
Film Reviews
Leave a comment

The Whistleblower: based on the true story of Kathryn Bolkovac, a U.N. worker that uncovered a scandal involving human trafficking, forced prostitution, bent police, and her ‘peacekeeping’ colleagues. Being a politically loaded / statement movie you can’t really miss the two main agendas: highlighting the brutal & ugly side of sex traffic, and pointing out some flaws and cover-ups of the United Nations – both noble causes, and both elements are well covered, shocking, eye-openers. The cast match the tone of the film, and Weisz in particular is shit-hot, holding up the film, and keeping it rooted in reality (she wholly de-glammed for the duration). Behind the camera, it’s no-nonsense film-making; a couple of shock moments that are done in a blunt, realistic way – not much is explicit, but the implied scenes are harder to watch – all efficiently handled. Other than the pretty rough material, and being a tad on the long side, there’s not much to complain about. The Whistleblower is a shocking exposé, and a  thriller with no ‘action set pieces’ – and whilst it’s a fantastic dramatic powerhouse, it’s definitely not a Friday night flick.

Score: 7/10