Haven

Excellent performances by Anne Bancroft and Natasha Richardson fail to rescue this syrupy and predictable propaganda film. It's every bit as exploitive in its own way as the propaganda films the Nazis once made. They too were well acted and brilliantly produced but were made to sell a political message rather than entertain. This film's message may be very different but the technique, the one perfected by Dr.Goebbels, is the same. Like Exodus, it is not a story so much as a political manifesto. Maybe that should be the occasional role of film but frankly I'm tired of having guilt trips laid on me every few months. It's particularly embarrassing that all the American flag waving, done ad nauseam in the second episode, was created by Canadians. (The film was shot in and around Toronto and was in part Canadian financed.)