Rating: 
Summary: Art imitates Life
Review: Perhaps I am biased because I was the male half of a relationship that very much resembles the one between Count Almasy and Katherine. Because of that I can assure you that Ralph Fiennes plays the part as it happens in life, as it happened with me. Also, K.S. Thomas, despite being reviewed as lacking in her performance in some circles, acted very much like my cohort in adultery. She fought the same demons and had the same unmistakeable attraction that could not be denied, let alone resisted.The plot is slow moving for some but I dare say that is because too many people watch movies such as this in a shallow way. The interaction between the characters has a depth that is rarely found in modern film. In my humble opinion the triangle love affair has a similar depth as the one in Casablanca. Turn off the lights and pay attention, you will find a film that has a thousand permutations, all of which work together to create a story that is interwoven and grander in scope than it appears upon first inspection. If you want to see a pure happy love story wacth any number of chick flics. If you want to see a war story, watch Saving Private Ryan, If you want to see the tragedy that true love sometimes is and the way life turns out all too often, watch this movie.
Rating:
Summary: The English Patient should be a relationship deal breaker...
Review: There are English Patient loving people and English Patient hating people - and therein is an explanation for many failed relationships and marriages. Ideally, online dating services should only pair EP lovers with same and EP haters with same. It should be a deal breaker. The film is, ultimately, an Anthony Minghella film of a Miramax Production, and that pedigree should tell anyone what they need to know. If you thought Minghella's "The Talented Mr. Ripley" was excessive, over long, high toned, homoerotic dreck, than stay away from the English Patient. The love in English Patient is all hetro hot, but the literary notions and expansive storytelling, where the insight is obvious but the telling sublime, is the point of the film. If you're a Cliff's Notes or action comics or video game person, it's not for you. If you love reading a classical novel, no matter how many tangents, digressions and verbal loops the author goes into to communicate their cumulative apprehension of the piece, then buy this film. The beautiful parts are stunning, and the parts that are "over the top" or "over wrought" in some viewers opinion are no more so than the excesses in an opera, which one may sit through bemused as much as impressed, charmed by the lovely lyric and moved by the fine score it's all wrapped in. The film is also worth watching as the piece in with Ralph Fiennes patented the character he has played over and over again through out his entire film career, including the proto version in Schindler's List: the stoic, emotionally remote, cool, sophisticated man who, once smitten by love, becomes an obsessive, emotionally unhinged and self destructive mess. He is very good at this maneuver, and this is a world class performance of his own, personal, character genre.
Rating: 
Summary: Elaine Benes says it all
Review: [Movie Theatre] Peterman and Elaine are still in front of The English Patient. Peterman stares, enraptured, at the screen.
Elaine is totally frantic with boredom. PETERMAN: Elaine, I hope you're watching the clothes, because I can't take my eyes off the passion. ELAINE: (quiet vehemence) Oh. No. I can't do this any more. I can't. It's too long.
to the screen) Quit telling your stupid story, about the stupid
desert, and just die already! (louder) Die!! The other movie patrons turn and shush Elaine, who sits back in her seat. PETERMAN: (surprised) Elaine. You don't like the movie? ELAINE: (shouts) I hate it!! CROWD: Shh! ELAINE: (shouts) Oh, go to hell!! PETERMAN: (quietly) Well, why didn't you say so in the first place? You're fired. ELAINE: (grabbing her bag and coat) Great. I'll wait for you outside. Elaine hurriedly gets out of her seat and leaves.
Rating:
Summary: Lush, dreamlike, poignant and passionate (very)
Review: Wow. Rarely does a movie reach so daringly for the heights and attain the top as The English Patient does. Set during World War II, it's a novel about love and loss, juxtaposing the doomed past love for a married woman that the horribly burned English Patient in the past with the blossoming love, during the waning days of the war, that his nurse is developing for a bomb defuser (talk about a dangerous occupation!) Told in ethereal flashbacks as remembered through a morphine haze, the story comes together in misty bits and pieces that weave themselves into a gossamer curtain that's laid over the whole tale. Comic relief is provided by Caravaggio (!), a thumbless thief.
Top rating, for sure.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Package, Bad Story
Review: First off, I must say, this movie does look tremendously pretty - very well done, excellent cinematography, and the like. However, when I watch a movie, I think the story being told is much more important than the way it is told. The English Patient, in my humble opinion, is a boring story. The drama is overdone, the film drags on and on, and by the time I watched the first hour, I had put the pieces together and knew exactly how the film would end. The only redeeming aspect of the film, I felt, was the curious and cute relationship that developed between the nurse and "Kip." Honestly, I can't believe that this film garnered so much critical praise - I've read reviews that said the Pianist seemed to drag a bit. If the Pianist dragged, then the English Patient skids and thuds at a slower pace, tearing bits of the ground off as it nearly refuses to progress. Eye candy it might be, but a waste of time the English Patient certainly is.
Rating:
Summary: Lancelot-Guinevere?
Review: This movie was spectacular-- amazing cinematography, great acting, beautiful storytelling. There were some lines in this movie that I can't get out of my head. For example, when the hero has Katherine in the cave he tells her (as a commentary on their adulterous relationship) that "every night I tore my heart out, but in the morning it was full again." That line reveals the passion and the anguish of their relationship. Both tried to fight against it, but it was if a force outside of themselves drew them together. You can't help feeling bad for poor Colin Firth, though. It's not like he was a bad husband by any means.
I read over some of the other reviews for this movie, and in response to those who gave this movie one star because of its central adulterous relationship, I would like to say that I don't think that alone makes this movie deserve one star. The most important thing to consider is not that there was an adulterous relationship, but did the movie portray that relationship as good or bad? I think it is obvious, considering Katherine's constant guilty feelings and the ultimate destruction of the characters' lives as a result of the adultery, that the movie portrays this as a bad thing. It would not have been such a beautiful and moving story if no one had felt bad about it and there were no negative repercussions. That is, I think the movie would've been much worse if the two lovers had ditched Katherine's husband and ran away together to live happily ever after and never had any second thoughts about the damage they were doing.
You can't help feeling torn as a viewer, though. It's almost like the Lancelot-Guinevere or Tristan-Isolde relationship. Though they share such exquisite passion, you can never get the betrayal of Arthur or King Mark out of the back of your head.
Rating: 
Summary: Not a waste of time
Review: This movie is lengthy, let me say that; although, the movie is pretty good. All the actors perform well, and the multiple plots will keep your attention.
Rating:
Summary: Sad and beautiful
Review: One of the movies that I'll keep remembering and watching again. The cinematography, the exotic desert landscape, the portrait of the European/ African Muslim cultural harmony, the beautifully haunting music, the intricately layered story (takes more than one viewing to fully understand), the way the two lovers have to part and the way he chooses to end his life and have his nurse read to him his lover's last writing as he passes away... All these just gel so well into a sad and beautiful art work, to be savoured again and again.
Rating:
Summary: Missing Essential Features
Review: The DVD is a great disappointment because of the lack of any special features at all. The movie is great but this is a bare bones DVD with nothing extra. The director has actually done a audio commentary for this film that was available on laser disk. When are we going to see this on DVD? Come on Miramax this was a pretty lame effort; we would like a DVD with more features? Why waste a directors commentary on an obsolete format?
Rating:
Summary: Heartwrenching masterpiece.
Review: The first time I saw this movie I was swept away by the beauty of the cinematography. I could hardly take in the whole of the movie because of the scenery. It didn't bother me to watch this movie over and over. I actually wasn't aware this was considered a "long" movie time-wise. I felt the movie flowed so well and so beautifully that I wasn't aware of the time. The story and the acting draw you in and won't let go. It happened to be on a movie channel again recently and, even though I have the VHS and DVD version, I couldn't help but stay up until the wee hours of the morning to watch it again..and still I wept tears at the end. This is one of the few movies that absolutely deserves all the accolades and none of the derision.
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