A strange one

Rating: 6/10 (12 January 2006)

I don't think its a very good film. I think my main problem was that outside of the oil fires, there wasn't anything visually to keep me interested. Conrad Hall was a real genius and because of him Sam Mendes' other two films look incredibly beautiful. This just looks like every other war film from the last ten years 'war is really bad so we should make it look grim by messing around with the colour'. I hate to be that simplistic about it but that's the impression i got. I suppose also in my opinion there are problems with the script which is really good when taken in its component parts but seem to add up to very little.
On the plus side, the acting is excellent all the way through, particularly Peter Sarsgaard, and like i said there are really good parts in the story and neat lines of dialogue.
Definitely not the worst film i've seen lately but failed to make a lasting impression on me.