Harrison's Flowers

Rating:
Summary: 4.5 stars, would have been 5 but....
Review: I realize that the film's point was the struggle of Andie McDowell's character to find and retrieve her thought to be dead husband, but I think this would have been a much better movie if there had been more emphasis on the events surrounding her character....The story is OK, but the real emphasis was on the war and brutality the Serbs had enflicted on the Croatian town of Vukovar.

While the film does depict the Croatians in their true role as defenders of their land, the writer/director made some historical inaccuracies. The town of Vukovar was defended for 87 days by a mere 1100 men. The enslaught of the Serbian and their Chetnik forces were courageously held off by defenders not willing to acquiesce to the savagery of an invading force. The violence was graphic and brutal. Just as the Serbian soldiers/militia/irregulars were during the war. The savagery mentioned and portrayed was dead on. As I mentioned before the number of forces on the defender's side was not.

I would have liked to have seen the director give credit to the brave 1100 who held the city for 87 days against insuremountable odds. These 1100 managed to take out 15,000 of the oppositions troops. Now THAT is bravery, cvourage and true determination. A little known fact about this town. Vukovar had endured for almost three months continuous bombing and destruction. The force of these bombs/grenades/rockets added together equaled the destructive power of the first atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. Can anyone imagine what this city looked like????

Overall a good film. The acting was very good. Andie did am ecellent job. A Lot better than some critics give her credit for in this film.

I would have liked to see more interaction with the local forces as well. It would have added to the realism of the film.

So, 4.5 out of 5 stars for a very good film.

Rating:
Summary: Despite the silly plot, this is a wonderful movie
Review: I recently rented "Harrison's Flowers" and I didn't know what to expect with it. I must say I was definitely impressed! Despite the silly plot and bad performance by Andie MacDowell, this film is incredibly emotional and the film did a great job a re-creating the war scenes. Look for Adrien Brody and David Strathairn in wonderful performances.

Rating:
Summary: Sober but excellent
Review: I saw this movie last year on a French airline headed back from Polynesia. The subject is personal (I'm a photojournalist), and while it hit me like a brick after cruising to Tahiti, the realism and horrow of the war zone images are both necessary and disturbing.

I've waited quite some time for the movie to come to the U.S. I highly recommend the film to anyone, especially those who glorify war, and who needs convincing that war is horrible, even if it does bring out the best and worst of the human species.

Rating:
Summary: This Film Tells the Truth About War
Review: I watched this movie for two reasons: I like Andie MacDowell and my last name is Harrison.

I liked this movie because I am a Viet nam vet that fought in Tet and therefore I have some considerable experience with war in a city, or as the Army used to call it War in a Built Up Area. If you have actually seen this kind of war, the movie is frighteningly accurate and like war, necessisarily fragmentary and incomplete.

For example, in one perfect and horrific, scene Andie MacDowell and her two journalist companions are moving through a city to find a hospital where her husband may be. They come upon a situation: a young child, probably a girl runs out of a building in front of them. A soldier follows her out of the building, and kills her. War's brutality? Certainly. A killing mad soldier, killing an innocent child. Possibly. But, even more likely, the scene represents wars brutality on multiple levels. If you knew that the child had just thrown a hand grenade and the soldier escaped it but his buddy, or even more likely in this kind of war, his actual brother did not would that change the nature of the scene for you? Or, if that was true and you knew that the child had another hand grenade, or a pistol, would that change your impression of the meaning of the scene? And how about that soldier many years later as he looks down at his own child, assuming he survives the war, will he be able to forget the look on that other chid's face as he shot her? However good his reason and in real war there are many reasons that can make such an act necessary, will he be able to forget, or will it haunt him. This kind of awful situation, but not unusual situation, is precisely why William T. Sherman said that "War is Hell." For a soldier, having killed a child for any reason must be true Hell, but to have done it on purpose. That would be worse. While I avoided shooting at children, the reality of war among civilians is worse than you could ever imagine even in a nightmare. Say you are a sentry and there is a car speeding toward your post. You open fire. The car stops. Your post is safe. But it turns out that a child is dead. The car was speeding to get to the hospital. That is war in the city and all you have is an instant to make up your mind to shoot, or not to shoot. To kill, or not to kill, and either way to live with the aftermath.

Do the sailors or Marines on watch on the USS Cole wished that they had fired. Even if their orders were not to fire. Even if the approach of the boat with a bomb in it did not look like an attack. Even if a child had been steering the boat with a bomb. I have no doubt that they all wished that they had fired. And they will wish that, and relive that, until they too die. In that sense they are as much causalities of war as their shipmates that suffered actual physical hurt. The Captain of that ship, the Officer of the Day, the Watch officer all will relive and replay that day and regret that no one fired soon or often enough. Watch this movie and you will see what I mean. There are things that happen in war that are horrible, to everybody.

I have seen war and I have seen many war movies - but only rarely have I seen a movie as true to the appalling core of the experience as this is. As our soldiers fight a shadow war in Iraq and in Afghanistan it would be good to remember that war is hell. If you have forgotten, this is a very accurate picture of it.

Yes, the plot is a tad implausible, but I would hope that the wife that my son chooses when he grows up would do as Andie MacDowell's fictional character does and fight to find out what happened to him. I know my wife would.

Rating:
Summary: A Review by David H.
Review: Mixed feelings about
Harrison's Flowers: Maybe the timing wasn't right, but I really wasn't feeling the vibe of this movie. The actors and actresses were great but the story lines could-of been better. Out of 12 of us who watched this movie on opening night, 4 liked it. Is this movie Oscar quality? Yes.
If you love drama, then you'll love Harrison's Flowers.

Rating:
Summary: An ode to marital love
Review: Quitte a few years after the end of the yugoslavic civil war , director's Chouraqui movie brings once more back to our memory the biggest tragedy of the Balkans' recent history . Harrison is a journalist whose traces have been lost during a job mission to the then united Yugoslavia . Witnesses claim he is dead yet his wife , Sarah ( MacDowell ) is not conviced . She still believes he is alive and takes a long , risky journey to Vukovar in order to find him .

Harrison's Flowers presents war in all it's horrow . It's well-made , brutal and realistic film concerning an always opportune subject. Director Chouraqui dezerves congratulations for chosing to focus once more on a war which destroyed millions of people yet the World Community seems to have already forgotten . Also credit must be given to MacDowell who chose to participate and support with her presence a project such as this as well as to Brody and Koteas who i hope that one day will become stars .

Rating:
Summary: Truth be Known
Review: Recent events in Iraq involving the deaths and injuries of several independent journalists and the sham Corporate media coverage of the war call me back to Harrison's Flowers. Through the eyes of Sarah, played by Andie MacDowell, and her independent journalist companions, one sees War, not in its sanitized, stars and stripes wrapping paper, but its bloody, tragic reality. Harrison's Flowers is a movie. Media coverage is supposedly the truth. Yet in watching Harrison's Flowers one definately gets the feeling that PEOPLE are killed and maimed in War, not the rable of non-entities as the Corporate media portrays it.

For me the High Impact moment of the movie was a scene of Ethnic cleansing. A group of elementary school aged children are hearded into a Store or House front by militia men. The militia men exit, and then hurl grenades into the building, blowing the children to kingdom come. It churns your stomach, fills you with revulsion, upsets you terribly. When an American missile obliterates an Iraqi family or neighborhood, see if the Network news coverage gives you that feeling.

This movie is best suited for the stout of heart liberal who is willing to watch true horrors. It is not for the Patriotic, right winger who feels these things are better off not seen or thought about.

Rating:
Summary: tribute to journalists who died covering the Balkan conflict
Review: Reviewer: A viewer from Kansas City, MO
This gripping film is a tribute to the 40+ journalists who died covering the war in the Balkans. The story centers around Andie MacDowell's character's search for her Pulitzer-award-winning photographer husband, who was reportedly killed when a building collapses in the war. Sarah Lloyd (Andie) is convinced that her husband is still alive, so she leaves behind her two young children & her job at Newsweek to venture to Serb-held Vukovar to find him. Her journey is fraught with violence -- shortly after she crosses into Yugoslavia, she encounters a Serb roadblock, where her hitchhiker/passenger/guide, a charming Croatian student in Paris returning to find his wife & baby, is needlessly executed, the rented Audi is crushed by a tank, and Sarah barely escapes rape. She is "rescued" by fellow journalists, and undaunted, continues her seeming suicide mission to find her husband in Vukovar. The violence in this film rivals anything you'll find on screen (think two hours of the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan) and you'll hear the ... word at least once a minute -- but it is well worth seeing. It will foster an appreciation of what photojournalists go through to document history, putting themselves at risk certainly as much as the soldiers, without the support & protection of an Army being them (albeit voluntarily). My only concern is that the film may oversimplify the issues underlying the conflict -- it depicts Serbs as evil and Croats as - - well, not evil, providing a relatively safe haven for the journalists. However, the film is not so much about the conflict itself as it is about the sacrifices of the journalists covering the conflict.

Rating:
Summary: Andie McDowell has come a long way...
Review: she gives probably one of her best performances as sarah, a woman who refuses to believe her husband is dead and travels to the former yugoslavia to find him.her performance is believeable as woman who's quest to find her man is a testament to the power of the human spirit. Adrian Brody also is very good as kyle, a hotshot reporter who starts out as an adversary of harrison( played by david straihairn )but comes to the aide of
Sarah. you also get a taste of the war between the croatians and the serbs which is shocking and devastating.

Rating:
Summary: MacDowell, Brody & Gleeson are Great Even When Film Isn't
Review: Stirring war drama + sappy love story with a rather tunnel-visioned heroine + powerful performances by Adrien Brody and the always-excellent Brendan Gleeson = a film that's watchable enough on cable on a rainy afternoon, but not 100% satisfying. Brody practically steals every scene he's in as bitter but dedicated photojournalist Kyle Morris, who's grieving for a friend and fellow photographer killed in the Balkan war yet still manages to help Sarah Lloyd (Andie MacDowell in a nicely understated performance) find her presumed-dead husband Harrison (David Strathairn, who doesn't get much to do except look earnest, but is a likable presence all the same. My husband, accustomed to seeing him as bad guys in DOLORES CLAIBORNE and others, found it refreshing to see Strathairn in a sympathetic role for a change), who's a prize-winning photojournalist on one last job for Newsweek. Brody's Kyle is a fascinating bundle of contradictions, in a realistic way. (For one thing, it's kind of refreshing to see that Kyle is not immediately vilified for abusing cocaine at one point in the film -- although my smart-aleck hubby couldn't resist a wisecrack about the amount of coke needed to fill a nose like Brody's! Men! :-) As a mom, I was troubled that Sarah was willing to leave her two children at the drop of a hat to go to Croatia to look for Harrison. Yeah, she left the kiddies with her mom (always nice to see 1960s fave Diane Baker get work), but what if Harrison was indeed dead and then Sarah went and got herself killed, too? I can hear the kids now: "So we're orphans because Mom loved Dad so much she went off to the war zone herself instead of getting the Red Cross or something to help her find him? Thanks for nothing, Mom!" BTW, HARRISON'S FLOWERS is the second film in a row (after BREAD AND ROSES) in which Adrien Brody sports bedhead and a beard, lending him a cuddly look even in his most intense moments, IMO. If I may allow my hormones to do the talking for a moment, Brody might want to consider playing more roles where he gets to look like that! :-)