mbellas Reviews

The Thin Red Line (1998)

It's the first 20 minutes of "Private Ryan" repeated...

[23 March 1999]

When the film opens the first thing to strike you is the beautiful cinematography. The "look" of this film is incredible. Unfortunately that is all it has going for it. If I threw some butterflies and shafts of sunlight in to the first 20 minutes of "Saving Private Ryan" and repeated it over and over again for 3 hours from different angles and points of view then you would have this film. At no point is there a plot or any character development at all. This is by far the largest collection of wasted talent I have ever seen. The likes of Nick Nolte, Sean Penn, John Cusack, Elias Koteas, Woody Harelson and many others far to numerous to list are never given a chance to do anything at all in terms of any acting per se. I spent 3 long, torturous hours waiting for SOMETHING to happen to SOMEBODY but there was never a somebody who was in it long enough to develop in to someONE that we cared enough about to have something happen to them.

This was one of the most disappointing movies I have ever seen because of all the disgustingly wasted potential and cinematic beauty corrupted by bad screen writing and lack of any substance at all. They spent a lot of time dressing up the film in pretty pictures and colorful shots but at no time did anyone decide what, exactly, they were dressings since there was nothing there.

School Ties (1992)

Brendan Fraser is an incredibly underrated actor...

[10/10 · 27 January 1999]

The performance of Mr. Fraser is incredible he plays his role with a passion and precision I have seldom seen in other actors short of the Jack Nicholson's and Robert De Nero's of the world. It is a story of teenage troubles with "fitting in" and the search for identity mixed with the horrors of prejudice. The film does not get bogged down in useless scenes and dialog to dive home its point. It is an "issue" movie that is subtle enough that you may not even realize it was an "issue" movie until after it is over. The story line never slows down there is always something going on that is both attention grabbing and pertinent to the plots development. Without the use of blatant sex and violence this film showcases the talent of three rising young stars (Chris O'Donnell and Matt Damon also star) as actors, not the big box office stars or teen heartthrobs, that they all went on to become. This is a well written, beautifully directed and phenomenally acted film that anyone can enjoy and relate too.