Overrated

Rating: 5/10 (21 April 2007)

Brokeback Mountain is a reasonably good film, but nothing like the hype it's been made out to be. It reminds me a little of John Schlesinger's 1969 movie Midnight Cowboy, which was way ahead of its time. Without denigrating Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal performances, Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight were sensational in Midnight Cowboy. I have seen 4 Ang Lee directed movies (Eat Drink Man Woman, Sense and Sensibility, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and this one), and they all are well-made commercial movies, but none of them are great or original in any way. It was therefore a surprise to me this movie winning best director Oscar. Even the screenplay was very jumpy, and left a lot to be desired - there was no real insight into what the two characters shared emotionally between them to carry on their affair for 20 years, in spite of having girlfriends, wives, children and individual lives of their own. I believe, both the movie and director are bit overrated.