Der Untergang/The Downfall (2004)
DIRECTOR: Oliver Hirschbiegel
CAST:
Bruno Ganz, Alexandra Maria Lara, Corinna Harfouch, Juliane Köhler, Ulrich Matthes, Thomas Kretschmann, Christian Berkel, Matthias Habich, Heino Ferch, Michael Mendl, André Hennicke, Ulrich Noethen, Doneven Gunia, Thomas Thieme
REVIEW:
The third major film depiction of the last days of Adolf Hitler (following 1973’s Hitler: The Last Ten Days, starring Alec Guinness, and 1981’s The Bunker, starring Anthony Hopkins) but the first internationally-released German production to feature Hitler as a main character, Downfall is director Oliver Hirschbiegel and screenwriter Bernd Eichinger’s frank confrontation of a man and legacy that has stigmatized and haunted Germany for sixty years. Continue reading
Alexander (2004)
DIRECTOR: Oliver Stone
CAST:
Colin Farrell, Angelina Jolie, Val Kilmer, Jared Leto, Rosario Dawson, Anthony Hopkins, Christopher Plummer, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, John Kavanagh, Brian Blessed
REVIEW:
Best-known for controversial, politically-charged fare like Natural Born Killers, JFK, and Nixon, Oliver Stone’s latest venture, the epically-mounted but narratively disjointed historical drama Alexander, is more cinematically straightforward than his previous efforts but unfortunately lacks the focus and drive to maintain consistent interest throughout its three-hour running time. Continue reading
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)
DIRECTOR: Peter Weir
CAST: Russell Crowe, Paul Bettany, Billy Boyd, James D’Arcy, Robert Pugh, Richard McCabe, Lee Ingleby, Max Pirkis, Max Benitz
REVIEW:
An adaptation of the exploits of characters created by Patrick O’Brian, who wrote twenty novels in the Master and Commander series, The Far Side of the World (which takes its name from one of O’Brian’s books but includes plot elements from several) differs from lighter entertainment centered around high-seas derring-do such as the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy in the rigorous pains it takes to be technically and historically accurate. The specific adventure portrayed is not a true story, but it is set in the historical backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars, and the filmmakers did extensive research into warships of the time period. Australian director Peter Weir (Picnic At Hanging Rock, Witness, Dead Poets Society, The Truman Show) filmed an actual typhoon and blended the authentic footage into a scene in which the crew battles a storm at sea. What little special effects there are are blended into the real thing with indistinguishable versimilitude. Continue reading
Max (2002)
DIRECTOR: Menno Meyjes
CAST: John Cusack, Noah Taylor, Ulrich Thomsen, Molly Parker, Leelee Sobieski, Peter Capaldi, Kevin McKidd
REVIEW:
The unimpressively—and somewhat misleadingly—titled Max, the directorial debut of Dutch writer-director Menno Meyjes, is speculative historical fiction postulating the unlikely friendship—of sorts—between a (fictional) Jewish art dealer and a young Adolf Hitler. To that end, Max is a sporadically intriguing but uneven debut that does a frustratingly lopsided job of partially squandering its potentially interesting subject matter with a banal script.
Continue readingGangs of New York (2002)
DIRECTOR: Martin Scorsese
CAST: Leonardo DiCaprio, Daniel Day-Lewis, Cameron Diaz, Jim Broadbent, Brendan Gleeson, John C. Reilly, Henry Thomas, Liam Neeson
REVIEW:
Martin Scorsese’s attempt at switching gears from gangster movie to historical epic, Gangs of New York is a bit of a mess, but it’s enough of a lavish, sumptuous, epically-mounted, lively, colorful mess that the grand guignol spectacle often propels us along through its formidable 3 1/2 hour runtime (it’s the kind of movie of Gone With the Wind-sized proportions that Hollywood seldom attempts to make anymore, one that would have come with an intermission halfway through) despite an excessively drawn-out and somewhat scattershot narrative and a reach that sometimes exceeds its grasp. The result is not likely to go down as one of Scorsese’s enduring classics on the level of Raging Bull or Goodfellas, but it’s a sporadically rousing and always colorful blood-soaked love letter to a forgotten corner of American history. Continue reading
K-19: The Widowmaker (2002)
DIRECTOR: Kathryn Bigelow
CAST: Harrison Ford, Liam Neeson, Peter Sarsgaard, Donald Sumpter, Ravil Isyanov, Christian Camargo, John Shrapnel, Joss Ackland
REVIEW:
WARNING: THIS REVIEW WILL REVEAL ASPECTS OF THE FILM’S PLOT
Following in the vein of such films as Das Boot and Crimson Tide, K-19: The Widowmaker is a thriller with an epic backdrop of historical conflict unfolding within the claustrophobic confines of a submarine. Kathryn Bigelow’s entry in the submarine genre doesn’t rewrite the book on anything—in fact, at times it’s cobbled together out of cliches, despite being based on an actual incident—but it’s well-made and engaging, and hits the expected points effectively. Continue reading
Conspiracy (2001)
DIRECTOR: Frank Pierson
CAST: Kenneth Branagh, Stanley Tucci, Colin Firth, Ian McNeice, Kevin McNally, David Threlfall, Ewan Stewart, Brian Pettifer, Nicholas Woodeson, Jonathan Coy, Brendan Coyle, Ben Daniels, Barnaby Kay, Owen Teale, Peter Sullivan
REVIEW:
This Made-For-TV HBO original movie, based on the sole surviving copy of the transcript of the infamous Wannsee Conference, will likely be found “boring” by those without an interest in the historical subject matter—after all, at least on the surface, it consists of nothing but fifteen men sitting around a table talking—but for those with an interest, Conspiracy is a disturbing docudrama that embodies the phrase “the banality of evil”. Continue reading
Enemy at the Gates (2001)
DIRECTOR: Jean-Jacques Annaud
CAST:
Jude Law, Joseph Fiennes, Rachel Weisz, Ed Harris, Bob Hoskins, Ron Perlman, Eva Mattes, Gabriel Thomson, Matthias Habich
REVIEW:
The Russian front in WWII hasn’t gotten much attention in a big-budget war film, so French director Jean-Jacques Annaud deserves some credit for giving us a rarely-shown viewpoint. However, the result is a mixed bag. Continue reading
The Patriot (2000)
DIRECTOR: Roland Emmerich
CAST: Mel Gibson, Heath Ledger, Jason Isaacs, Joely Richardson, Tcheky Karyo, Chris Cooper, Tom Wilkinson, Lisa Brenner, Rene Auberjonois, Adam Baldwin, Gregory Smith
REVIEW:
With The Patriot, one gets the feeling screenwriter Robert Rodat was trying to do for the American Revolution what he previously did for WWII with Saving Private Ryan. To an extent, he deserves credit, as The Patriot is, oddly enough, virtually the only big-budget Hollywood film portraying the Revolutionary War. Alas, the man in the director’s chair here is not Steven Spielberg, but Roland Emmerich, he who leaves no cliche unused. The Patriot is a marked improvement over its immediate predecessor on Emmerich’s filmography, 1998’s Godzilla bastardization, but features too many “a film by Roland Emmerich” hallmarks to be the true great war epic it clearly fancies itself. Continue reading
Gladiator (2000)
DIRECTOR: Ridley Scott
CAST:
Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielsen, Djimon Hounsou, Oliver Reed, Richard Harris, Derek Jacobi, Tomas Arana, Tommy Flanagan, Ralf Moeller, David Schofield, Spencer Treat Clark, Sven-Ole Thorsen
REVIEW:
Gladiator is the first sword-and-sandals epic in four decades, and harkens back to epic spectacle on a scale seldom mounted while updating the Roman epic with modern effects (and modern violence). Gladiator is a ferocious epic of sand and blood that might attract both fans of Spartacus and those who appreciated Rob Roy, The Last of the Mohicans, or Braveheart, and combines spectacle, red-blooded action, and narrative prowess into a rousing and dynamic film.