The Root of all Evil

Rating: 6/10 (8 October 2013)

A film with 8,1/10 (36000 votes) on IMDb should be an instant classic, a masterpiece of cinema, a film you will remember for the rest of your life...or so you would think. Well, no. There is a 'twist' in the story that you could say is cleverly written, it does not make up for the other defects of the film. It's slow, with the character going though to motions of their 'discovery', but none of that makes for interesting scenes. I didn't care much for the characters and certainly failed to identify or sympathize with them (a basic requirement for liking a film). The story takes place in an unidentified Middle-Eastern country (apparently they didn't want to offend any middle eastern people or they think it's all the same over there -whatever) and religion is (surprise, surprise) basically the root cause of all the evil that happens to our protagonist. The sum of all these elements does not add up to a great film. I even turned it off after 35 mins. After a few days I gathered enough courage to plow through the remainder of this film, and it does get a bit better after the slow start. My advice is: there are films you'd think are perfect but there's always such a thing as personal taste.