The English Patient

Rating:
Summary: My favorite movie.
Review: I can watch this movie over and over again. It is the best.

Rating:
Summary: Let's call a spade a spade...
Review: This is a "Chick Flick" from beginning to end. It's not an epic - it's a 3-hour soap opera! Watching "The English Patient" was like opening a jar of caviar only to find a swarm of ants embedded in a carmelized lump of corn syrup... I hated it!

Rating:
Summary: The book is better...
Review: WWII, Tuscany. A National Geographic explorer (Fiennes) falls in love with the wife of a colleague (Scott-Thomas), which eventually consumes both of them in flames of illicit passion. Charred beyond recognition, with but the slightest morsel of memories, he comes under the care of Canadian war nurse (Binoche) in a ruined villa. Meanwhile, a thumbless thief (Defoe) subjected to the cruel physical interrogations and a Sikh mine strappler (Andrews) cross paths with the duo.

Minghella's war-time romance swept 9 Oscars at Academy nite, including Best Picture; but it's no wonder, it's the kind of broad-canvased film the Academy loves. It's hard to resist at first too, so crisp and rich are the color tones of John Seale's photography. To be truthful, at 162 minutes it's a trite too long, and there're times I feel a hardier core would suit better than endless shots of sweeping Sahara chasms; the screenplay tends to be more inert and though the motivations of the characters are clearly stated, it's hard to feel psychologically involved or moved by any of them. Ironically the elegiac end may be the best part of the movie, but Seale's cinematography and Yared's mesmeric score ensure some of these time go by not without a linger. Putting the strengths of the book and the adaptation together, I would opt for Ondantje's Booker-winning novel, but this 1996 film is well worth a look, if as a lush example of modern-day movie-making.

Rating:
Summary: Filled with romance, drama and adventure (4.5 Stars).
Review: Remember the Seinfeld episode wherein Elaine Benes proclaimed how lousy and slow this movie was? ("Why don't you just diiieee!") Well, that was enough to prevent me from seeing "The English Patient," until recently, that is. I finally decided to kick back and watch the film to see for myself if it was as bad as Elaine said it was (or as good as so many others contended).

First of all, the film isn't nearly as long as rumored; it's only two hours and twenty minutes (not including the end credits). Compare that to, say, "Titanic" which is almost an hour longer or "Lawrence of Arabia" which is an hour and a half longer.

Secondly, as long as one is psychologically prepared to see a drama/adventure flick and not an action film, the story sustains interest quite well. Some sequences are slow, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Needless to say, if you're a big fan of "Armageddon" -- essentially a two and a half hour trailer with its never-ending quick (and irritating) edits -- you will not like this flick.

One might criticize the ignoble and unfaithful character of the lead players. While this is understandable, I don't feel the movie justifies or glorifies their actions -- it's simply a story about REAL people with REAL flaws who make REAL mistakes (just like you and me) and must suffer the consequences. And suffer they do. Besides, there are some highly likeable and noble characters in the cast, like Kip and Hana.

In light of the criticism of how long and boring this flick is, I was delighted to discover quite a few scenes filled with suspense, action and high-adventure. For example, the plane crash scene (the second one), the desert storm sequence, the bomb-about-to-explode episode and the fight-to-the-death in the train scene, just to name a few.

As many reviewers note, the desert cinematography is marvelous; in fact, the movie is worth seeing for this alone.

BOTTOM LINE: "The English Patient" has elements of "Lawrence of Arabia," "The Bridges of Madison County" and "A Passage to India;" if you're a fan of the style, pace and realism of these movies then "The English Patient" is for you.

Rating:
Summary: As good as the book
Review: This magnificent film captures the essence of what is an equally wonderful book -- both are beautifully described, full of interesting historical content, and emotionally just devastating. What the film added was gorgeous art direction and cinematography, and the physical intensity of Ralph Fiennes -- I thought he was perfection in this role, with the rest of the cast being outstanding as well. Watch for the lovely transition where the aerial topography fades to a close-up of rumpled sheets with the same geographic contours, and so many other breathtaking scenes. I haven't been this absorbed and bowled over by a film for a long time.

Rating:
Summary: Oh my god...
Review: I finally saw this movie, and wow... it was so unbelievably bad. It swept the Oscars with nine Academy Awards the same year as 'Fargo' and 'Shine'?? I wonder how much and who they had to pay in order to pull that off. This is perhaps the most overrated film of all time.

After two viewings desperately trying to see how this was good, it only re-emphasized my thoughts on how the characters were boring, the acting was stagnant and the story just plane and simply sucked. Also, maybe this was for some kind of an effect, but the make-up of the burned character was so ridiculusly fake that I've seen more realistic make-up in low-budget-B-Rated horror movie. Also too many subplots infest the plot... non of which I cared the slightest bit for.

Not only that, but being a film student, I kept hearing from professors and other people about how this was an achievement in cinematography.

Huh???? I'm so confused it's not even funny. The movie didn't even look that particularly great.

Wanna see recent advances in cinematography? Watch a movie shot by Darius Kondji, Harris Savides, or Matthew Libatique. Wanna see great acting? There are a million better performances than the ones in this. Wannan incredibly passionate story? Even though this is a book, the English Patient is one also, so I say read 'Love in the Time of Cholera'.

This is garbage, and somehow the makers put some magical spell on the vast majority of people to worship it. And for that I say that my rating for this is one star too high.

To conclude, think about it this way. This movie is about 2 1/2 hours. So when counting all the times this has been watched along with all the times it's now being watched and how many times it's going to be watched, the time adds up to hours, days, weeks, years, decades, centuries... perhaps millenia that the human population will have lost because of this horrible movie. I'm sure someone can find the cure for cancer in that scope of time.

I was an idiot for wasting 5 hours watching this movie twice and now I am kicking myself. If this review prevents one person from watching this then it was all worth it.