Rushed

Rating: 3/10 (14 November 2004)

This movie suffers from a case of something that I find in a lot of newer films. The narrative or plot is rushed as if the director was in such a panic to get the story told that he forgot to develop the plot and characters. A great actor like Donald Sutherland is wasted in the role of Nicole Kidman's father. Case in point is the scene where Sutherland is trying to suss out Jude Law's intentions toward his daughter, the camera inexplicably pulls back in a monumental crane shot to reveal Kidman at a window listening. The effect is that we are supposed to somehow sympathize with Kidman. This is difficult to do while the dialogue is rendered inaudible and ineffective. Another remarkable weakness is the fact that the film is about the civil war but there is very little reference to black people. The ever hammy and over-rated Rene Zellweger comes across as giving the best performance only because her character is the only one that has more than one dimension. A waste of money all around.