RESCUE DAWN (2006)
Director: Werner Herzog
I really wanted to simply love this film. But after seeing it, I’m a bit disappointed. Sadly, because I had high expectations. I’ve been looking forward to see this film for several months now.
Christian Bale is a superior actor, and he does exactly what is asked of in this film. Most actors are good here, and I don’t really have any problems with anyones performance. Some scenes are tense, disturbing and genuinely scary.
However, we’ve seen this before, and we’ve seen it made several times much better. And from what I understand, Herzog has made a very inaccurate screenplay, which I see as a bit dishonest and almost evil. Why play out Eugene this way? Seems to me that the people who were there say that Gene was not like this at all. There were no real reason to change the facts.
One other thing that constantly bothered me was the bad camera work. The camera jumps, is unclear, has drops of water all over it, shakes and so on in amateurish ways. The person behind the camera must be a very inexperienced camera man, because this was bad.
Also, the editing is well below common standards. Some scenes are too long and could’ve used a trim. The film is over two hours, which is about 40 minutes too much. There isn’t simply that much material to cover here. Maybe if Herzog had added the seventh prisoner as it was in reality, we could’ve used a little bit longer time, but now, it’s waste of time.
We don’t get a clear introduction to the other prisoners, which I think is sad. It would’ve been much more interesting to actually see the group grow, and see the group efforts and also play out the hostility from the guards.
We get to know the guards by their alias names given to them by the prisoners, but we never understand WHY Little Hitler is called Little Hitler. For being a film where people are tortured in a jungle prison, there’s very little torture and very little prison.
The jungle is there, and that’s about the best in the whole film.
Herzog is a boring schmuck who obviously has no clue on how to direct a film so it becomes interesting, exciting and scary. At some scenes he gets lucky, but I doubt it’s because of skill…
Herzog made documentaries before, and rather controversial ones I’ve understood. I’ve never seen anything else from him, and quite frankly, after watching RESCUE DAWN, I’m not so interested in doing so either.
Seems to me that Herzog has his own idea on what “reality” is. It is also clear for me that he doesn’t understand the drama format, or what to do with it.
Overall RESCUE DAWN is not a bad film – it’s just ruined by a bad director and an idiot behind the camera. Everything in front of the camera is nice and professional.
With another director, a more truthful script and a better camera man, this could’ve been a classic!
Score: 6
RAMBO (2008)
Director: Sylvester Stallone
After watching the first trailer I got high hopes for this film. Finally, it seemed, that Sly made a real RAMBO-film.
And he did! This is by far the best Sylvester Stallone movie I have ever seen. It is brutal, it is powerful, it had depth. And very much so.
If you are not familiar with Burma and the situation there, you should spend a few minutes reading up on the subject. The fact that they try to educate you with a few seconds of real (and painful) news footage (some as recent as fall 2007) is good, but not enough. With some insight in the Burmese situation, you will enjoy this film much more.
It is vital to stand alert, watch every minor detail, closely see the actions Rambo is taking here – and everybody else for that matter. When the bullets start flying (and they do fly so very often in this flick), it’s tough to keep up, but necessary still.
Where movies like SAVING PRIVATE RYAN and HOSTEL tries to justify their violence with plot, RAMBO’s violence IS the plot. Nowhere have we seen such an honest film with such a tough Central Question: is it ever justified to kill someone? The movie is short, it has four characters we learn the names of and only a few minor characters we care about. It is minimalistic in every sense – but it is so very well done that we are watching a pure masterpiece here.
This is definitely not a film for everyone. But everyone should watch it. It is an important film, and it brings up an important subject. It is pure theater, pure excitement.
When I go to a movie I want to FEEL something. And this film makes you feel so much.
Pure excellence.
Score: 10
THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND (2006)
Director: Kevin Macdonald
Some spoilers here – be warned! I just watched BLOOD DIAMOND, and today I watched THE LAST KING OF Scotland. If you’re going for a film that depicts an African country in the correct way and does so seriously and with respect, than this last title is your choice.
It is an extremely well made film that totally pulls you in the moment Forest Whitaker opens his mouth for the first time. He’s one of the best actors alive, and I’m very happy to been able to watch this film. This is a remarkable performance we see here.
James McAvoy as Amin’s doctor, is also very good, however Whitaker runs over anyone in this film. That’s okay, though, since this is first and last a film about one of modern history’s worst dictators ever.
Don’t be fooled of Amin’s charm. He’s a bad guy and he was a bad guy from the first moment. He just don’t want you to know.
Amin is up there with the top ten of worst dictators ever. The weird thing though – and this is where the film really shines – is that we actually LIKE and ENJOY the big presence of Amin. Every single frame that he’s in is a true gem to watch. Even when he’s mean, we can still see it in his eyes, what the doctor see: a child.
This film might not be perfectly accurate, historically, but what it gets right it gets right powerfully.
And it was also nice to see Anderson dirty and messy. Too bad she had such a small role.
Wonderful movie that should not be missed. One of the best films of later years, and absolutely one of the most important and best biographic films ever made.
Score: 9
KINGDOM OF HEAVEN (2005)
Director: Ridley Scott
I haven’t seen the “real” version but only the Extended Directors Cut of KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.
The film is about a blacksmith-turned-knight who finds himself fighting both Christian knights as well as Saladin’s Muslim warriors.
If I was a Christian American, I might have found this concept extremely interesting in times like these, but now I am Swedish and not particularly interested in the conflicts between Christians and Muslims, so for me it becomes a bit dull and partly obvious.
I love knights and films that try to portray knights within a true heraldic sense, and KINGDOM OF HEAVEN actually does a pretty good job there. The costumes, weaponry and armory are all very true and the heraldic symbols nicely put together.
Also the casting and acting is very nice.
The bad things – which is also this films largest problems – lies within the story itself and the directing. Sure, it is a visually nice (not stunning) movie, but it is extremely overlong and parts of it are just repeating itself and feels unnecessary and out of place. The first hour and a half, would have, in any other film, been concluded within 10-30 minutes. I am not particularly found of the super-slow pace in the films start, which makes the ending too feel slow since you’re pretty tired then and wants it all to end.
The end battle is not very well done. Scott wants to show a siege over a few days, but it doesn’t work in the movie. It just makes the battle feel like a cut-up action-sequence and completely ruins the battle pace. This is truly not a new GLADIATOR and if you have any needs for cool action, then this flick will be a great disappointment.
For anyone who wants to watch a 3-hour drama with knights and dust, then this is your kind of film. Especially if you’re interested in a movie that shows Christians and Muslim as equally stupid and equally brave. The film does a very good job to show that neither side is evil or good – but that there are good and evil people among them both. This is a nice break from the regular slur you get from lower budgeted movies, and this is also the reason why I give it a 6 out of 10 instead of a 4 or 5.
The action sequences – few but nice – are entertaining. Historically, this is just a piece of bull, but as a tired piece of entertainment, with good actors, it is a fine film.
I am not sure on what Scott’s intentions were with this movie, and I sure won’t try to find out. This is not a film you will watch again. Watching it once is nice, but lets leave it with that. Not a classic, but at least average.
Score: 6
LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD (2007)
Director: Len Wiseman
If you’ve never seen a DIE HARD-film, then you might like this as a pure entertainment flick for a rainy Sunday. But if you’re a fan of McLane, then you’ll feel sad afterward.
Bad actors, embarrassing computer-hacking-stuff, extremely boring sets & props and a stupid script makes this the worst of the DIE HARD films.
I’m actually a big fan of the second DIE HARD movie, but I of course love the first one too. Even the third one I think is good entertainment! But this… no… Here we have a tired Bruce Willis going around New York without a clue on what is going on. In all the other films he was the force that unraveled the whole mystery of the bad guys – but here McLane is reduced to a fat bouncer with a gun.
McLane’s character is out of place and silly. The one-liners are tedious and the plot is ridiculous. Whoever wrote the script should have his Final Draft program taken away from him.
The action is good though. Especially Maggie Q is cool and has one (!) good scene. She is taken away too soon though and too early. Her death is spectacular, and so is the end scenes with the fighter plane.
Everything else is exactly the same things as we’ve seen in a thousand other movies before. Nothing new here! Actually, it feels like they just took a bounce of films and edited in McLane a little bit here and there… And the screenplay can *not* been an original DIE HARD-script. This has to have been a script that was too bad for a sole release, so they added McLane to it to make it a bit more “interesting”. Too bad it doesn’t work. A bad script is always a bad script.
Instead of McLane’s wife we have his daughter here. That doesn’t work at all and feels totally useless. She just adds more time to a movie that already goes too slow.
As an action film it is about ten years too late. As a DIE HARD film, it should’ve never been made.
Boring, tired and unnecessary.
Score: 4
BLOOD DIAMOND (2006)
Director: Edward Zwick
You can’t really say that the producers of this film are as much heroes as the film’s characters. Leonardo DiCaprio is doing one of his best roles, and is great as the diamond-hungry smuggler from Rhodesia. Djimon Hounsou is equally marvelous as the family father who just happened to find the largest diamond in the world.
The story revolves around conflict diamonds, large business conspiracies and child soldiers. Most of it is created from true stories. But some stuff that are extremely important to lift forward (like that the price of diamonds are kept up by a cartel) are just mentioned quickly.
Likewise, the ending is soft and tacky. Don’t be fooled to think that this is an African movie depicting Africa, Sierra Leone or any other African country or place, in its right way. This is purely Hollywood speaking, and it has nothing to do with anything but selling a product to a domestic audience.
This comes evidently clear when you hear the hip-hop for the first time. Why is it that all films with black actors HAS to have hip-hop music – just because there are black people in the film? If Hollywood wanted to stay free from racial slurs, then they should try to re-think their productions a bit more. BLOOD DIAMOND have many of these almost racist characterizations, and that doesn’t give these tough and important subjects justice.
But even though the producers are cowards, and the PR-people stupid fat white men, the rest of the film is quite nicely done. It could have been more violent though, since watching a war movie without blood feels like watching a TV-film from the 1960:s.
The movie itself has a very nice script, the locations are great and the actors are mostly very good. The director tries hard, and gives us as much as he’s allowed to show. The producers, though, should probably try to produce children movies in the future and stay clear of hard subjects. Some people just doesn’t have the guts for the real thing.
Score: 6
ALIEN VS PREDATOR: REQUIEM (2007)
Director: The Brothers Strause
AVPR isn’t really that awesome as the trailer makes it out to be. It’s a nice try, and it’s a stronger and better film than that AvP-thingy from Paul WS Anderson.
The alien parts and the predator parts are handle with some interesting choices. The super small glimpse of Yutani and the predator home world are actually the single two best scenes in the whole film. They’re like five seconds each, though, so don’t get your hopes up. 
The characters in AVPR are, however, painfully boring. There are too much people running around doing nothing. There’s too much stuff happening, and even if there’s a lot going on, we don’t care and we don’t really find it that interesting.
This story has been told so many times that it’s almost a spoof of a cliché. The sets are tedious, the human interaction a bit confusing and sloppy, the story is flat.
Action is something these two directors can handle. When there’s action, it’s very well done. The gore-parts are nice, the killings are cool.
But who cares? Dutch in Predator was a guy we really wanted to make it – hence, the fight between him and the Predator was cool and chilling. Ripley in Aliens – same here.
But these guys? I don’t even remember their names…
Note to the brothers (and the writer) for the next film: concentrate on fewer characters, make them interesting and try to make a character driven film. Add the action later.
As a piece of entertainment with no real value, it works. It’s a perfect film for the time when you need to kill an hour and a half. But if you’re looking for a cult-classic, or a bit of cinema that’s exciting and fun to watch – then don’t bother.
Because of the very good effects, the fact that this is actually another Alien vs. Predator film and that it’s better than the Paul-version – I give this one a 6. It’s not really the “real” vote - if I didn’t like these Alien and Preadtor-guys so much, I would’ve voted a 3.
But I guess that we won’t get back what once were. These two sagas ended with Predator 2 and Alien 3. After that – only light entertainment made by dorks.
Score: 5
13 TZAMETI (2005)
Director: Gela Babluani
Very interesting film that has lots of ideas borrowed from films like INTACTO (2001) and DEER HUNTER (1978). However, here, these ideas are played out fully, and completely, and nothing is left behind.
13 TZAMETI is a wonderful little film, completely made in black/white. This puts the spotlight on the characters and the story, instead of using special effects and/or other horror or tension gripping tricks.
The movie is very well played with some superb performances. The direction and script is splendid. The movie is very subtle, but sometimes right on the spot.
I like that it plays out as a Hitchkock drama, mixed with tension taken from a Gaspar Noé-film – even though 13 TZAMETI never shows graphic gore in the same way.
This is a very very well made movie that I bet many people will enjoy. It is scary and portraits a horrific world – but it is a very very good movie!
Score: 8