Compelling though implausible story.

Rating: 9/10 (26 January 2011)

Even though the story is far-fetched and indeed challenges the limits of plausibility, it's an engaging, interesting and at times dramatically powerful movie. The movie also teaches a very important lesson: Walking thousands of miles through dense forests, across deserts and over mountains, in nasty weather, can be hard on one's feet. This movie features some of the most stark close-ups of beat-up feet maybe in the history of cinema. Between Ed Harris and the young lady who plays the female escapee, there's enough foot damage to keep a team of podiatrists busy for years. Indeed, after watching this movie, one might think twice before deciding to take a walk across a desert - with no water or food - which brings up another point dramatized in this movie: Never take a 4,000-mile walk without bringing matches. At some point you'll have to make a fire, and it's not easy to make a fire in the middle of nowhere without matches. It can be done, but it takes a lot of work and you can save yourself a lot of hassle if you bring matches. Now, the soviet Gulags were deliberately placed in the middle of Siberia precisely to deter the kind of escape portrayed in this movie. Indeed, the authorities were practically inviting prisoners to try to escape and with good reasons: first, there was no place for the prisoners to flee to and second, the environment was far more punishing then the prison itself, meaning that there was probably more of an incentive for inmates to stay in the prison and try to make the best of a bad deal than to leave and be at the mercy of the forest, snow, cold and wild life. Nevertheless, the movie presents a compelling story about desperate people trying to escape to freedom, and that alone makes the movie worth watching.