Great battle scenes

Rating: 6/10 (22 January 2007)

As with the French weeper, A LONG ENGAGEMENT, COLD MOUNTAIN is a war film within a romantic film, a chick flick with some pretty awesome battle scenes and satisfyingly bloody violence. Jude Law plays a southern farmhand who goes off to fight the Civil War, vowing to return to his true love, the aristocratic Nicole Kidman, who has recently moved with her ailing father (a bewigged Donald Sutherland) from the big city to the hills of North Carolina. While Nicole is waiting for Law to come home, she undergoes various trials and tribulations, as does Law. An almost unrecognizable Renee Zellweger plays Kidman's spunky right-hand woman, and Natalie Portman is a woman with child and no husband whom Law befriends on his arduous journey home. Jena Malone, Charlie Hunnam, Kathy Baker, Philip S. Hoffman, Ray Winstone, Cillian Murphy, Brendan Gleeson and Giovanni Ribisi play supporting roles. With all this star power, especially all the foreigners, I half-expected Keira Knightley to pop in. The thick southern accents are something to hear, if not always understand, and the many fight scenes are worth a look by all you unreconstructed males out there. I could have done without all the romantic folderol, but you can't have everything. Zellweger gives an Oscar-worthy performance. Come to think of it, she did win an Oscar for her role in this.