Rating: 
Summary: Let your female companion watch this during your nap...
Review: Rarely have I been so bored with a movie that I sat all the way through. Absolutely nothing happened in the movie. But the music and cinematography were great...
Rating:
Summary: Go ahead, vote "no" to this review, but...
Review: The vast majority of you who read or write reviews of this movie are doing so to champion the English Patient, so vote no all you like to whether this review is helpful, but give it some thought.There is no arguing with the epic cinematography involved here, but this is the classic case of style without substance. When you get past the fancy clothes, there is nothing of redeeming value here. Style can create a substance in and of itself if it is done properly. Take Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man, a post-modern take on the genre of westerns. Through the use of stunning black and white photography, a sparse soundtrack, and minimal dialogue, Jarmusch isolates us from the emotions of the characters because the characters are by-and-large isolated from their own emotions. The effect of the movie is to create a sense of detachment, where all that really remains is the impact of the images captured on film. The movie hints at an objective view of humanity, one that does not pretend to identify or illustrate the feelings of the actors. The English Patient errs terribly in the other direction. The film saturates us with the emotions of the characters. If you can pull back from the style that overwhelms you, you can see that the characters have become caricatures. They are people obsessed with their own emotions. At best, the movie simply fails to create realistic characters who laugh, stumble, suffer embarrassments and occasionaly experience moments of inarticulation. At worst, the movie has created characters that, if viewed independent of the pretty presentation, are self-obsessed. The characters here are much like those of a soap opera, motivated only by comical lust and power. I can see how the movie seduces the viewer, but I respect any person, professional critic or otherwise, who is willing to take a closer look. A well-done movie needs to reflect something that is in all of us, regardless of the story line in which that something is explored. After watching a quality movie, we should be able to ask a question of ourselves, or understand ourselves more completely. If there is value in this movie, it should be recognized as pure entertainement, not art; something akin to the entertainment of an action-movie. To be art, the artist(s) must appeal to something deeper. Art should challenge us, not appease us with a story that masquerades as a romance.
Rating: 
Summary: I should have stayed with "Sack Lunch"
Review: In the sitcom "Sienfeld," the character Elaine goes to watch "The English Patient" and finds it incredibly dull and boring. When she says she doesn't like the film, she is looked at in shock and dismay, and her boss even threatens to fire her if she doesn't see it again. Much like Elaine, I find that many people consider this to be the greatest movie, and I found it to be the absolutly most forgettable Oscar winner in history. The fact that this defeated "Fargo" (probably the greatest, smartest and most intriguing movie of the 1990s) is beyond me. Supporters of the movie claim that if you don't like this movie, then you just like simple Hollywood fluff. Wrong! I get tired of the same old Hollywood drivel too, and The English Patient is no different than any other of this stuff. Simpily put, there is no there there. For me to get into the characters, they either have to be likeable or at least interesting. The English Patient had neither. Putting aside the moral implications of their romance (it would be one thing if the husband was cruel to the wife, but he wasn't) there was absolutly no chemistry between the two. No chemistry equals no emotional attachment to the characters, and instead of bawling my eyes out at the end (which I probably would have if they were better characters) I just sat on my hands. Binoche is interesting although the side romance was more of a distraction than a complient to the plot. The issue of euthansia was glossed over and done without any thought or reprocussions. It just had to be the most empty, nonexistant movie in recent memory. On the plus side the cinematography was impressive and the score was decent. But this could not hold a candle to "Fargo"...even the similarly overrated "Titanic" deserved the Oscar more than the English Patient, and at least "Titanic" was not forgetable like this. So I'll decide to watch "Sack Lunch" instead, thank you very much. Now are the people really small or is it just a really big sack....
Rating:
Summary: ZZZZZZZZZZ
Review: I've tried to watch this monumental bore several times, and I never am quite able to get past Fiennes in the plane. How this film won 26 Oscars (or how many ever it won) is beyond me . . especially given the films nominated or eligible the same year (Fargo, Secrets and Lies, The People vs. Larry Flynt, Jerry Maguire, Breaking the Waves, Welcome to the Dollhouse, Get on the Bus, Trainspotting, James and the Giant Peach, Lone Star, and Shine were but a FEW). Anthony Minghella, you are not David Lean, neither will you ever be in your wildest dreams. If I wanted sunsets and lots of desert with minimal dialogue, (there was more in 1927's "Jazz Singer") I'd simply rent a Disney true life adventure.
Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful Love Story
Review: Upon first seeing this movie, I was swept away. The air of mystery that prevailed throught the film was evident from the very beginning, and I was curious to know what was behind the characters. And although the ending was not at all what I expected, I actually enjoyed it more. Perhaps I'm just a sucker for stories of doomed love, but I honestly don't see how anyone can see the relationships between the characters as flat and one-dimentional. This movie is one that I was still thinking about days after I had seen it; I still become lost in the story every time that I listen to the soundtrack. My point is that, if you haven't seen this movie, go now. And don't let the fact that it seems slow at parts fool you- the movie is complex, and it will all make wonderful sense in the end.
Rating: 
Summary: Immitation of Lawrence of Arabia!
Review: This film is a rip-off of Lawrence of Arabia.....the only thing original to it is the love story! It's not bad, but no other movie can be compared to Lawrence of Arabia! I suggest you watch the David Lean epic first and then compare it to The English Patient. Someone please tell Ralph Fiennes to stop immitating Peter O'Toole!
Rating:
Summary: Overrated
Review: The English Patient is a vastly over-rated movie, filled with unmemorable characters and a slow, plodding story that builds nowhere. The problem is, the academy showered this film with oscars, as they often do with technically excellent, but substantively lacking films. Don't be fooled...The English Patient is simply not a very interesting movie.
Rating:
Summary: Boring and Unengaging
Review: From the many five-star reviews by Amazon reviewers, it seems that what happens is that the people who really liked this movie rush to review it to tell the world how great they found it to be. But the people who are turned off simply don't bother reviewing it (with a few exceptions). The result, on the Amazon list anyway, is a wildly overrated movie. I would like to address my review to the readers who are genuinely interested in getting a sincere recommendation whether or not they should see THE ENGLISH PATIENT. To those people, I have to say that the plot is a hodge-podge, the characters are supremely uninteresting, you don't get involved either in the characters or their stories, and the film is interminably long. Why, then, do some people like it so much? Partly because it's so "English," partly because of the numerous flashbacks which I found totally distracting but some people find "artistic," and largely because of the slowly photographed scenery. The scenery is quite nice, actually, if they could have only superimposed upon it a movie that had some intrinsic worth. If we had half-stars, I'd give THE ENGLISH PATIENT one and a half stars. Maybe it's closer to two stars than to one, so let's give it the benefit of the doubt. Bottom line: don't say I didn't warn you.
Rating:
Summary: One of the most over-rated movies ever.
Review: When I saw "The English Patient", I was expecting it to be really good. I mean when a movie wins 9 academy awards and has Ralph Fiennes in it, you expect it to be one of the best. So many people have said it's brilliant and so good, but I found it to be too long and very boring. How it won all those awards I'll never know. It just didn't have what it takes to be a good movie and to win any awards. I'm with Elaine in "Seinfeld". She didn't like it either. Maybe I should watch it again, that way I might pick up on something I didn't see before and then I'll understand what everyone means when they say it was brilliant. But, I don't think I should waste my time.
Rating:
Summary: Top 5 ever on my list
Review: I saw this file in a Second run theater that smelled like the sewer overflowed and flooded the place. But it didn't matter because the movie was so excellent that I didn't even know I was there. I can't even figure out what it was that I loved so much about the movie. I expected it to be some stupid romance chic flick. But at the end of the movie I just couldn't get over the feeling that it had touched on a part of my soul that I rarely get to see. It's a long movie and if I had my way, all movies would be 3 to 4 hours. There are times in the movie that are a bit slow, and there's not really any major action in it. There is some history (though I don't know how accurate it is) Mostly it just the feeling I got that endeared me so much to this movie. It's so charged with emotion throughout. The feeling of loss and acceptance becomes your own when you really put yourself there. I think that's what makes this movie great- the ability to be there riding in that plane as it crashes, walking across the desert with the knowledge that everything you care about is depending on you. It's a beautiful story and though I don't usually care a bit about awards, I would give this one my award for superb execution of a story that tore at my heart and pulled tears out of my cold and controled exterior.
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