Good acting, boring film

Rating: 6/10 (8 March 2002)

I am not a Russell Crowe fan, but found his a good performance, along with Jennifer Connelly's and Ed Harris'. But, in spite of this, the film turned out to be a little dreary and too long. Why on earth the current trend is making films as long as possible? Can't we have a good movie whose running time doesn't go beyond two hours?
Being a little sensitive when it comes to the same old political references, I got the willies when the "Russians-are-out-to-drop-a-bomb-on-us" quote came first. I thought we'd had enough of that bullshit in the past, but apparently not. To be honest, I didn't know the film's action was set in such a large period of time, starting in the early stages of cold war and ending in the nineties, but anyway that remark made me lose interest real quick. Plus the movie drags on too long. Any good film can be flawed by an excessive running time, like happens to be the case and, despite Crowe's great performance, his character is boring at times. I could not care less for John Nash if he is that dull.
To sum up, the film is not bad but, as for deserving so much hype, I sincerely doubt it. Not that this year there is a lot of Oscar-deserving movies as far as I know, aside from Lord of the Rings, of course. Maybe Bridget Jones' Diary should have been nominated, but I guess it's too "incorrect" for those Hollywood morons to take.
6/10.