slash213
Lifetime Total
1+
IMDb Member
16 years
Reviews
Silence (2016)
When director has a crisis of faith
***MILD SPOILERS***
It's as anti-religious as it's gonna get (the end sequence when Neeson tells Garfield that "they didn't die for Jesus, they died for you" is absolutely obvious). Before I watched it tonight, I've read a couple reviews and discussions and... how the hell could you perceive this as Christian propaganda? It's ANTI-Christian! It's about a couple of well-off dudes wreaking havoc on a bunch of credulous farmers. It's about powertripping.
Holy sh@t, the protagonist has a crisis of faith every single time he faces an obstacle, and he recovers his faith the moment he gets to wield power over fellow human (confessions, baptisms, mess) and then loses it again.
Still, it's definitely not a 10/10 movie. I enjoyed it, it's worth your money, it is worth of Scorsese's legacy, acting is top notch, and the pacing felt right to me, but the story itself falls apart at times and the movie has to fall back to characters to carry the narrative further.
Honestly, watch it. Regardless on your stance on faith. If you like slow-rolling period dramas, you'll have a wonderful time in Silence.
It's as anti-religious as it's gonna get (the end sequence when Neeson tells Garfield that "they didn't die for Jesus, they died for you" is absolutely obvious). Before I watched it tonight, I've read a couple reviews and discussions and... how the hell could you perceive this as Christian propaganda? It's ANTI-Christian! It's about a couple of well-off dudes wreaking havoc on a bunch of credulous farmers. It's about powertripping.
Holy sh@t, the protagonist has a crisis of faith every single time he faces an obstacle, and he recovers his faith the moment he gets to wield power over fellow human (confessions, baptisms, mess) and then loses it again.
Still, it's definitely not a 10/10 movie. I enjoyed it, it's worth your money, it is worth of Scorsese's legacy, acting is top notch, and the pacing felt right to me, but the story itself falls apart at times and the movie has to fall back to characters to carry the narrative further.
Honestly, watch it. Regardless on your stance on faith. If you like slow-rolling period dramas, you'll have a wonderful time in Silence.
Charlie Wilson's War (2007)
I... well. I don't know.
This movie presents extremely one-sided view on the Afghan war. I don't know if this is normal for the North American take on the situation, but for me it looks incredibly ignorant. Russians are rapists, ruthless invaders who's taking their joy in killing children and destroying peaceful villages. I struggled to find irony there but failed.
I hope no one takes this movie as an accurate depiction of this conflict. I hope you'll make your research, you'll look at the pictures of dead youngsters who were thrown into this political mess without proper training or equipment (hello, mandatory draft). A lot of Russian families lost their sons and fathers to this war and they even had no reason to justify the loss.
The movie itself is okay. Acting is mostly good (Philip Seymour Hoffman kills it like he always does), story is engaging, dialogues are witty and robust. The finale made the overall ignorance somehow less offensive. The ball keeps bouncing, doesn't it?
But the way the movie portraits the motives of Russians is disgusting. I'm pretty sure some people who watched this thought it was accurate and I find this disastrous.
I hope no one takes this movie as an accurate depiction of this conflict. I hope you'll make your research, you'll look at the pictures of dead youngsters who were thrown into this political mess without proper training or equipment (hello, mandatory draft). A lot of Russian families lost their sons and fathers to this war and they even had no reason to justify the loss.
The movie itself is okay. Acting is mostly good (Philip Seymour Hoffman kills it like he always does), story is engaging, dialogues are witty and robust. The finale made the overall ignorance somehow less offensive. The ball keeps bouncing, doesn't it?
But the way the movie portraits the motives of Russians is disgusting. I'm pretty sure some people who watched this thought it was accurate and I find this disastrous.
2012 (2009)
Emmerich should switch to filming trailers.
No, really. For years I wonder what is so awfully wrong with Emmerich? He manages to direct awesome CG scenes and terribly fails with everything else: story, suspense, characters, SENSE.
Every trailer to Emmerich movie contains about 100% of what you should really see: kick-ass catastrophes, planes flying through volcanoes, Earth melting into nothing, etc. You come to a movie theater, they force you to listen for an hour to poorly written dialogs, then show extended version of trailer and voilà! The end.
So better watch trailer again and stay home. There are much better ways to spend almost three hours of your precious life.
Every trailer to Emmerich movie contains about 100% of what you should really see: kick-ass catastrophes, planes flying through volcanoes, Earth melting into nothing, etc. You come to a movie theater, they force you to listen for an hour to poorly written dialogs, then show extended version of trailer and voilà! The end.
So better watch trailer again and stay home. There are much better ways to spend almost three hours of your precious life.