This movie isn't good without a thorough cambodian history lesson

Rating: Null/10 (16 December 2007)

Now, first off ill confess that i require 2 senses to watch a movie (sight and sound). This movie's music was just horrible, it didn't exist in most parts where there should have at least been some type of chasm. The parts that actually did have music just sounded awful and ill-placed. For example when phran is walking along the lake and you see the massive amount of skeletons all over, there isn't any noticeable music playing for a little while. Then all of a sudden they start playing some scary music like he never actually saw the skeletons until after walking around for 5 minutes. There was another part where a helicopter was flying around and they played some horrific sound that didn't even seem like music at first, but apparently it was.
The other issue about this movie is they did a terrible job of outlining the plot. They used a lot more filler then they needed to and it ultimately droned out the plot of the story. This movie could have easily been an hour or 1.5 hours long.
One more thing about this movie is you never fully understood what was going on in the scenes. For example in the beginning of the movie when phran and sydney are captured? and sydney is all complaining about how he needs to go so he tries to leave then a guy puts a gun to his head and he goes back. Alright, that makes sense, so phran and sydney aren't going anywhere but wait... the next day?? Sydney just walks out and it is no big deal.
Then near the end of the movie Phran starts crawling around in a pond like an alligator and none of the khmer rouge are supposed to see him apparently. So he "escapes" his prison camp and walks around for a while. but wait, almost the next scene later he's back in prison camp? and talking to the supposed leader of the prison camp? then a while later he leaves the prison camp again and he walks around in the same area so you think hey he's just out on a stroll. However he finally ends up in thailand after this stroll....
If you have no idea about the background history of any movie you watch (me) then this is a terrible movie. If you're a cambodian history buff or even Vietnam war buff then you'd probably like this movie. overall i'd say this movie is a catastrophic failure but people seem to like it and i don't wanna ruffle anyone's feathers.