Good story....bad art work

Rating: 5/10 (27 December 2006)

The story line was good. But the "arty" type of filming...the darkness, the almost sepia color....ruined it for me. I have 25 year old tapes of movies that look better that this film.I don't know why it was necessary to use cheap "art movie" tricks to enhance the film. It was very distracting. And difficult to watch. The thought running through my mind was I could have got all the story from a radio version for all the good the film did. Sometimes dark to the point of "dead air".
I thought Hank was good. He played the role just as I imagined the character was in the book. He was good! I thought Audrey Tautou's character was rather wooden...but again maybe the darkness hid her work. Even Jean Reno wasn't his usual good self. He seemed unsure of his role.
I hated all the tricks...the blurry scenes...Why, Why did he do it. Ron it could have been a great movie. I would have liked to see Mel Gibson do this one.
All in all, I would expect this film to do lots of time on Sundance channel. And get passed over by a lot of viewers in the years to come. Too bad...Tom Hanks did a good job.