I Am Not Left-Handed ...

Rating: 7/10 (27 May 2013)

In the Kingdom of Florin, the beautiful Buttercup is heartbroken when her true love Westley is killed by pirates. Five years later, she is betrothed to Prince Humperdinck, but she does not love him. When she is abruptly kidnapped by three bandits who are then pursued by a mysterious masked man, it appears that all is not what it seems ...
Some movies just seem to hit all the right notes, and The Princess Bride is one of them. It works both as a pure fairytale of love and adventure, but also as a wryly tongue-in-cheek comedy, and it has just the right balance of action, humour, romance and intrigue to suit everyone; a true family film if ever there was. The best word to describe it is delightful. With its deliberately old-fashioned tone it may not be the most original story, but it's so full of inventive scenes, crazy characters and hilarious lines that it just sweeps you away right from the start and makes you cheer for the heroes. It features a truly wonderful cast, with the then relatively unknown Elwes and Wright both great in the leads, Guest a wonderfully sneaky six-fingered villain and rib-tickling supporting roles from Shawn, Falk, Crystal and Cook. Perhaps best of all though are the unlikely pairing of Patinkin and André as the desperadoes-turned-good-guy-buddies Montoya and Fezzik; Patinkin is simply perfect as the revenge-seeking swordsman and this is pretty much the only movie where you can see the late great André Roussimoff, who stood seven-foot-four, was a legendary wrestler, and who gives an incredibly gentle and charming performance. I love adventure movies; I always have and I always will. Whether it's Robin Hood, Tarzan, Indiana Jones or whoever takes your fancy, cinema was made for thrills and spills, and this is a terrific example of how to do it right. It's packed with great scenes - the as-you-wish opening, Fezzik's rhymes, the dual between Westley and Montoya, the deadly game with the poisoned chalice, the Pit of Despair, Miracle Max, storming the castle ("If only we had a wheelbarrow !"), Montoya's triumph, many more. It's also one of those movies where all the technical elements are unobtrusively brilliant. This is particularly true of the charming acoustic score by Mark Knopfler (the guitarist/singer of rock band Dire Straits), but the photography, costumes and sets are all first-rate. Brilliantly written by the near-legendary Hollywood screenwriter William Goldman (Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid, All The President's Men), though the movie itself was funded independently and shot in England. All of Rob Reiner's movies are good, but four he made in the mid-to-late eighties - This Is Spinal Tap, Stand By Me, The Princess Bride and Misery - are all just outstanding and outstandingly different, and The Princess Bride is perhaps the best of these. Don't miss it, and if you have young children, make sure they see it too.