Both My Thumbs Down

Rating: 4/10 (16 February 2006)

It is hard to not give high marks to a film so beautifully photographed, yet I found this film self-indulgent, overwrought, and dull. If you have never had the thought that war sucks and that soldiers are people and are frightened, then I suppose this film might make you think. This script is trite without being cliché, so that's something, I suppose. The photography, as I have said, is absolutely beautiful, but combined with this script and the director's choices for the actors, it was like watching a high school play shot by National Geographic. Lines like "War doesn't enoble men - it makes them dogs" and showing one second of a fist fight that has no reason at all is not deeply moving or thought provoking - it is just lame. Maybe the book is better. I would give it even lower marks if the cinematography wasn't so outstanding.