imdb-com-109 Reviews

One Night with the King (2006)

Stunning visuals, painful acting.

[4/10 · 26 February 2007]

This movie would be great for a drinking game - everybody has to do a shot every time someone says the word "protocol". You'll be tipsy in 10 minutes and mercifully passed out long before the end.

The visual fx were incredible to watch, but thats due more to their design than execution; there's no effect here that wasn't seen in Star Wars years ago.

Not to say there weren't some good moments in the film - there certainly were. But these were tiny island reefs in a sea of stultifying mediocrity. I can't blame the actors - Omar Sharif and John Rhys-Davies are hardly B-movie material - so it's rather clear that the fault lies with the director.

Still, the acting was... distracting, at best. To hear Ms. Dupont slip into and out of a fake English accent over and over was funny at first. But the tortured dialog seemed like it was written by a ninth-grader who had just read Shakespeare for the first time and didn't quite get the idea.

I commend the actors for putting their best into it. I blame the director for getting the worst out of it (the word overdramatized was coined with him in mind, I'm sure). I abjure the writer to find another profession. And I pity myself for not stopping it halfway through as I should have.

Spy Game (2001)

Better the n-th time around.

[9/10 · 4 April 2006]

I made the mistake of only watching this film once the first time around. I did end up buying it, though I was never sure why. Then, years later, I got around to watching it again... and again... and again... While Spy Game is so fast-paced that it's difficult to keep up the first time around, I think that's what makes it such a great DVD.

There are performances in this movie that defy description. You almost get a sense that if you were to meet him in the street, you'd get someone named Nathan Muir playing the part of Robert Redford - the transformation is that complete. In several scenes, but especially the scene on the Berlin rooftop, Redford gives a performance that is unlike almost anything I've ever seen in cinema. It's that perfect. Brad Pitt also does an amazing job, but Redford steals the whole movie.

I had to re-watch Spy Game three times before I felt I got a complete understanding of everything going on. There is almost nothing given away for free in this movie - none of the standard Hollywood "shove-it-in-your-face-so-you're-sure-to-get-it" fare. Every decision, most plot points, and a lot of what would normally be called "meaningful looks" are written on Muir's face for a split second, then they're gone.

This is one of the few movies that's intellectually challenging to watch. It takes patience and a quick assessment of each scene to understand and keep up. None of the acting is over the top or explicit; most everything is controlled, subtle, and delicately handled.

All in all, Spy Game is an exceptional movie, IMO, to watch and in some ways to study.