I’m still a little steamed that this movie is mentioned nowhere in the Oscar nominations – I mean even a sound nod would sort of appease me. Yes it was released early in the year… but as I started this second viewing, I said to the person who I was watching it with, who asked if it was nominated for any Oscars, “No, but it should be.” Part of me wasn’t entirely sure of that statement, just a memory of my first dropped-jaw experience; but now I’ve seen it again, I still see how amazing a movie it is.

Harry Gregson-Williams’ score, Christian Wagner’s editing, the visual trickery, the superb creative use of subtitles (I’m certain we’ll be seeing more of this in films to come), and this is before I begin to even think about the performances – Denzel Washington, Christopher Walken, Mark Anthony, Radha Mitchell, and of course, Dakota Fanning. This role will likely go down for her like Natalie Portman’s in Leon and Kirsten Dunst in Interview with the Vampire – not necessarily because it will forever be her best, but because it’s the first that made so many people go “Wow,” and some people, myself included, will likely never enjoy any of her future performances more. You can’t watch her in the first half of this movie without smiling, and that’s so crucial for what happens in the second half. Her absence for nearly all of the second half is painfully notable. It’s almost like she has more impact offscreen than on.

Anyway, I still love the movie. Just a little more than before. It’s a grisly story, true, as I said last time, it highlights the most awful aspects of human life and these kind of movies are not good for me to watch often, ‘cos I just get too depressed. But there’s so much to behold, I can’t help but want to come back and look closer. One of my all-time favourites for sure.

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Old Review (7th October 2004):

It’s a pity this movie wasn’t released a little later in the year. I realise it’s slight folly to hope for a movie released in April to win Academy Awards, but this is easily one of the few “above and beyond” actual great movies (in my opinion, at least) of 2004 (in fact, only Eternal Sunshine fully comes into that category, any other of my ’04 faves are personal ones), and I wouldn’t be entirely shocked to see a sweep of nominations in an ideal world. I’m amazed I hadn’t heard or read a lot about the movie. I was under the impression that it was merely average, since there seemed to be no real passionate opinions either positive or negative.

There are elements of Taxi Driver and 8MM here, as well as a style that reminded me of Traffic and Black Hawk Down. I mention Black Hawk Down because I felt this movie opened my eyes to the reality of kidnapping in the same uncomfortable way as Black Hawk Down opened my eyes to the reality of war (re: why people go to fight). My thoughts were up and down throughout this movie. It’s fairly sensational in execution, but somehow it never over-sensationalises the subject matter. I’d give an example but the only example I can think of would be a spoiler.

The one Oscar nomination I would love to see this movie receive is (and I realise it won’t happen but I’m just saying) for Dakota Fanning’s superb performance, honestly the greatest child performance I have ever seen. I’d heard of Fanning but never seen her in a movie. She’s absolutely incredible from start to finish.

Denzel Washington, too, is great. That might sound like a given, but I’ve never really liked a Washington performance as much as I did this one. I’ve always admired his acting, but on a personal level, he’s usually annoyed me. Here, he really got me.

It’ll be a difficult movie to find a time to watch again. It’s a movie that to me really expresses how miserable the world is, and it’s never a good time for me to watch a movie like that more than once. But it’s definitely one I’ll look for on DVD if it has enough extra features. Colour me blown away.

Tags: cuties, top 250

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 27th, 2005 at 11:55 pm and is filed under 5 hearts, Movie Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.