Near perfection

Rating: 10/10 (20 November 2004)

This film crept up on me, and snatched away my personal prize of 'Best Film' that I'd years before awarded to another. But it deserves it. With pathos, humour, violence, necessary betrayal, and many other parts to its whole - it is astonishing. I was dumbfounded by how effortlessly this masterpiece unfolded before me. The only shame of making a film like this is how do you follow it? Well it seems a made-for-TV sequel is how you do it. Shame, but when a big film/TV studio offers megabucks to cash in on the fame of the original, it must've been impossible to turn away. Still, I have seen a lot of films over the last few years and nothing quite beats this. I cannot fault it at all - except that it did have to end. I know I'm fawning in my shameless praise, but it is the one recent film I can think of that I could rate as a '10'.