Comments about recent movies

Three movies I’ve seen recently are Sahara, The Interpreter and via DVD When Will I Be Loved.

Sahara was a film following in the footsteps of movies like Indiana Jones. It falls well short of the Indiana Jones standard with too many ah-ha moments carrying the plot. An ah-ha moment is a point in the story where the story can’t proceed without some accidental amazing discovery or insight. Even still, the movie is fun to watch with fairly cleaver action. It’s not going to make it into my DVD collection though.

The Interpreter is a good political thriller film. I especially appreciated Nicole Kidman’s acting. You could see what she was thinking, and feel what she was feeling, even without dialogue; all without over acting. The film’s story isn’t as grandiose as films like Clear and Present Danger. This story and plot were more dialogue driven. This makes Nicole’s and Sean Penn’s great acting essential for turning an ok story into a good movie. There is a chance this DVD will make it into my collection.

When Will I Be Loved sucked. I got the movie for Neve Campbell. I'm not a big fan, but curious. Well, I understand the movie’s title. The title serves as a clue for the final show down at the movie’s end. But, the whole story is so improbable, it is not enjoyable. The movie was less than 1hr and 20min. It would’ve have been a much better story if it was cut down to about 35 minutes. The entire first 45 minutes of the film serve no purpose, though they are meant to develop the story’s characters. Here’s a hint to future film writers: Don’t develop a character without telling the overall story for longer than a couple minutes. Simply having a character do a bunch of stuff just so show personality traits for 45 minutes is extremely poor writing, no matter how cleaver or witty the dialogue or on-screen activity.  Ok, in case you saw this movie and missed the point of the title: The old Duke is lying, but not about the money. Neve's character never said he was lying about the money. He promised to satisfy Neve’s character, but obviously wasn’t up to the task. If you haven’t seen the film, don’t bother finding out what I’m talking about.