A hack of a movie

Rating: 1/10 (21 February 2002)

I didn't notice any comments here bashing this film, so I think I'd better add one; in my opinion, this was one failed movie. The only three things that kept me watching it to ending were actor Russell Crowe, cinematographer Roger Deakins and composer James Horner.
Actually, the film starts pretty good. The first half hour reminded me of quality British dramas (like Chariots of Fire), and had a few marvellous scenes. Just as I was starting to think this would be a good movie, it started to go drastically downhill.
The filmmakers (Ron Howard, Akiva Goldsman) get drawn into what appears like two subplots - one about Nash's love affection and one about his paranoia of communist spies - and lose the conception of the film. There's been comments of the film as a tear jerker... Sorry? I didn't find anything emotional about this movie. Towards the ending, it just keeps getting more and more like a bad TV-movie. All characters are poorly written, there is not one single good dramatic scene; a *lot* of the screen time is stolen by imaginary characters (they actually feel more lively than the actual people in the movie).
The acting is hopeless; the dreadful direction makes all characters except Nash seem like cameos and the screenplay really feels as it is written by the fellow who wrote Batman & Robin (dah).
And the fact that the film isn't thruthful to its subject doesn't make it any better, either.