Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Charles Frazier, Cold Mountain stars Jude Law, Nicole Kidman and Renee Zellweger, and has been called The Odyssey set during the Civil War. After fighting at Petersburg, wounded Confederate soldier Inman (Law) wakes up in a hospital and makes his way back to his beloved Ada (Kidman), a preacher’s daughter in Cold Mountain, North Carolina whom he left three years ago. During those three years of loneliness, Ada’s father (Donald Sutherland) passes away. She then meets the feisty Ruby (Zellweger), who helps her care for her father’s farm. Together, they suffer the war’s financial and emotional repercussions as Inman continues his difficult journey back to his true love.
Minghella, who won Oscars (including Best Picture) for The English Patient, successfully adapts another critically acclaimed novel. He pens a rich, emotionally literate screenplay of layered delicate romanticism and beautiful, elegant violence. But not only is he an amazing screenwriter, but also a remarkable director. His artistic eye can reach grand scales of gorgeously orchestrated war scenes, at the same time intimate, passionate love scenes between Ada and Inman. Minghella is empathetic for his characters, and evokes ideas rarely seen in film.
Kidman and Academy Award Best Actor nominee Law both give profound, exceptional performances. Though their characters are separated throughout most of the film, they radiate strong, sharp passion that heats up the theater. But the two supporting actresses who truly steal the show are Best Supporting Actress nominee and sure winner Renee Zellweger and Natalie Portman. For one, Zellweger adds a cheerful tinge of hilarity and charm to the film. However, she also takes a dramatic turn. But it’s the unnoticed Portman who truly packs the powerful acting punch as the single mother Sara. Her incredibly intense, heartbreaking performance as a woman whose baby is taken away from her and is raped by soldiers strangles, even suffocates, preventing you from breathing as tears stream down your cheeks.
Cold Mountain is a brilliant film, an emotional meditation of the often-disregarded repercussions of the war. It is stunning, amazingly intense and a paradoxical exercise that evokes incredible beauty from the sheer ugliness of war.
Bottom Line: Cold Mountain is a beautiful, brilliant, startlingly intense, deeply affecting film that oozes with emotion and was robbed of the Best Picture nomination it deserved.
Grade: A
A woman sues a gun-manufacturing giant when their illegally sold guns murdered her husband. In this historical lawsuit, Nick Easter (John Cusack) is chosen as one of the 12. There’s one catch: he’s working with Marlee (Rachel Weisz), a woman who’s planning to use her partner to swing the jury’s verdict either way. They then contact people from both sides – the widow’s lawyer, Wendell Rohr (Dustin Hoffman) and an influential jury consultant, Rankin Fitch (Gene Hackman) – and ask them to bid for the verdict of their liking, and the one with the highest bid obviously getting the verdict they want. Fitch then attempts to find this woman, as threats are exchanged and negotiations are held, all leading to the climactic moment when the verdict is finally read.
Based on the John Grisham novel, Runaway Jury’s plot was tweaked as to not be associated with the Russell Crowe docudrama The Insider. Originally about the tobacco industry instead of the gun industry, screenwriters Matthew Chapman, David Levien, Brian Koppleman and Rick Cleveland changed the film’s lawsuit as to avoid comparisons to Crowe’s movie, but that’s not the only thing they should’ve changed. Often, Runaway Jury feels bearably sluggish, lethargically and unnecessarily lingering on the same ideas it has already established. Sometimes, it’s even guilty with one of the most heinous crimes to be committed by a film: tedium.
However, Jury also has much to be applauded for. While the script can get sluggish, it can also get unpretentiously witty and clever. Though, since it’s based on a Grisham novel, you shouldn’t really expect anything incredibly profound. You should, on the other hand, expect something exciting, something thrilling and enjoyable – and that’s fairly what you get. Also, the acting is exceptional; it is a treat watching the two screen legends Hoffman and Hackman in such intense competition, not only in the courtroom but also for the kudos of their equally brilliant performances. Jury also marks the return of Jennifer Beals to film (remember her from Flashdance?). I loved Flashdance, and even though her part as a juror is very small (five lines at most), her appearance still got me singing What A Feeling in my head the rest of the film.
Runaway Jury may not be an award-worthy, revolutionary film – it’s simply solid entertainment. It is an enjoyable run of the mill legal thriller, ordinary, but entertaining nonetheless. It may be flawed, but don’t let that stop you from seeing it.
Bottom Line: A sharp and sleek legal thriller that gets the job done, but is ultimately forgettable.
Grade: B-
Watch 21 Grams. Academy Award Best Actress nominee Naomi Watts, Best Supporting Actor contender (and previous winner) Benicio del Toro and Best Actor nominee Sean Penn is helmed by Oscar-winning director Alejandro Gonz·lez IÒ·rritu in this unique, intense drama.
Watch In America. Best Actress nominee Samantha Morton stars in this drama about an Irish family who moves to New York in the hope of living the American Dream.
Watch School of Rock.
Watch Runaway Jury.
Watch Chasing Liberty. Mandy Moore and Matthew Goode star in this sweet, light romantic comedy of cotton candy fluffiness. A great feel-good movie.
Don’t watch The Haunted Mansion. Eddie Murphy stars in this bland, frustratingly unfunny film based on the Disneyland ride.