Despairing keyhole glimpse into the not-so-distant future...

Rating: 6/10 (14 May 2007)

"Children of Men" didn't exactly set the box-office afire, and one look at it tells you why: the bleak film packs a wallop, but not the kind of rousing cinematic punch we get with most war movies. This one, set in 2027 London, hits too close to home for mass audience acceptance; it offers no hope for anybody, especially viewers in the need for a quick entertainment fix. Clive Owen plays a British working-stiff annoyed by (and, perhaps, immune to) the constant world-violence saturating the media; after nearly getting killed in an explosion, he agrees to help his ex-wife (and terrorist operative) with a mission to smuggle a young woman across the border. The hitch is, the lady is eight months pregnant--the first such occurrence in eighteen years! A horrifying vision of war, one with no good or bad sides, just senseless brutality and inhumanity. Though compact at one hour and forty-two minutes, "Children of Men" is a staggering achievement yet is a difficult one to get through. One almost recoils from it--but only because its lawlessness isn't very hard to fathom, which is both helplessly disturbing and cruelly enlightening. **1/2 from ****