DCLastcolony

First, how can you make a movie with the beauty of the drive from Cannes to Paris as a backdrop without paying any attention whatsoever to cinematography? If Coppola would have only checked the 1950s film, "Three Coins In The Fountain" as just one example, she would have seen how this should be done. That film was in widescreen also to showcase the landscape, which this one wasn't. The aspect ratio 1:85:1 was ridiculous for a film like this.

Second, as a previous reviewer said, there is absolute no screen chemistry whatsoever between the captivating Diane Lane and Arnaud Viard who is much too plain looking for this role in any case.

Third, the script is banal beyond words -- totally uninteresting and pedestrian. Skip this one or prepared to be bored.

So bad in fact it is hard to believe movie pay sites like the new pay Vimeo and Amazon Video on Demand would hoodwink people into paying for this film. One wants to support independent film-makers to be sure and young actors need to be encouraged, but the script of this film above all is so bad, it drags everything in the film down with it. There are so many scenes in the film that are not only boring and clichéd but totally irrelevant to the main story line and character development. In addition, there are just far too many repetitive scenes, such as on the street and in stores. The theme of the film -- two young Muslim men in New York who bond with each other and love each other -- has possibilities to be sure, particularly for a general American audience unfamiliar with Islam. But the theme is completely wasted in this effort.

Just when you think you know where this story is heading, it takes some twists and turns that will leave you reeling. The acting and direction is superb, especially the lead role played by Pablo Schreiber who is dealing with dark secrets that don't become fully apparent until near the close of the film. All the actors give great performances aided by a superb script. The music and cinematography are equally compelling. On one level, this story is about abuse, but it also is about people making unwarranted assumptions without possession of the full facts. Nothing in this film is quite what it seems to be. Its conclusion is stunning and cautionary. Well done.

When will a movie about what The Alamo was really all about be made? It is now the twenty-first century and yet here we have, once again, a movie that essentially celebrates a republic -- Texas -- founded on slavery. Mexico abolished slavery in 1829, an important fact totally omitted from this film. White Texans were rebelling against their government in Mexico in no small part because they wanted to preserve slavery. They were, in effect, terrorists fighting against their own government in Mexico City that wanted slavery abolished. The Texan victory over Mexico in 1836 assured that slavery would continue. If Mexico had prevailed at the Battle of San Jacinto, which followed the Texan defeat at The Alamo, slavery would have ended in Texas in 1836 instead of thirty years later. The movie adds at the end that Texas was admitted as the 28th state into the Union in 1845, but omits that it was admitted as a slave state. Is that fact unimportant or irrelevant? So here we have once again a film that distorts history and overturns elemental morality by arguing that those who were, in effect, fighting for slavery were really fighting for freedom. And by the way, it was not only Jim Bowie who owned slaves, as the movie briefly acknowledges, but also Sam Houston and Davy Crockett as well. How heroic is that? I guess we will have to wait for an African American writer and director to finally get this story right.