Are you Kidding me? Oscar Nominate this? Please.

Rating: 2/10 (15 July 2004)

Are you seriously kidding me? This movie got Oscar nominated for what? After watching this I thought someone was pulling my leg. Lets start off with some facts. This is a civil war movie filmed in Europe. Totally inexcusable. The location was enough to make this movie doomed. But no instead we get a LONG drawn out movie where Jude Law "Inman" dies at the end after watching him live through every sort of situation imaginable he gets into a talking duel with Cold Mountains "Billy the Kid" and slowly dies. Come on! How cliche is this? Not only was the end of the movie pathetic it was anti climatic. What a waste of an opportunity. You had all the makings of a good movie and all the necessary characters early on, instead the script calls to kill everyone off slowly throughout the movie. The art of good script writing is dead. To many movies like this. Yes war is bad and people die, why not show us the smart ones who live through it and how they did it.
Now lets not get me wrong Jude Law does a good job trying to be southern but I can't get over he is from England! The producer of this movie needs his head examined filming a Civil War movie in Europe with an English lead actor. Nichole Kidman does a good job but she just remains way to clean compared to the supporting cast and it stands out, she looks out of place even when they try to "dirty" her. Things like this and the completely depressing pathetic ending not to mention the overly long movie run time make this just not a very good film.
Movies with bad endings are always easy to spot. They never get much public support. The reason is simple people DO NOT like to be depressed. That is why I was so hesitant about Cold Mountain. I kept hearing Oscar Nomination but no big push by the public for it. Some things never change. Maybe one day these producers and directors will learn that people really do enjoy good, smart movies about redemption, hope and happiness. Not sappy tragedies. There is a reason Shakespeare is only brought up in literature class and Cold Mountain was named "Cold Mountain". Sometimes its obvious, what a waste of time.