| . |
Cold Mountain
(Reviewed December 7, 2003)
-
The tastefully dull love story of separated soulmates Nicole Kidman and Jude Law is the least interesting aspect of this soapy Civil War drama set in the Confederacy. The best parts involve the supporting characters Law meets on his deserter's odyssey back to his Cold Mountain, North Carolina home. The always watchable Philip Seymour Hoffman is hilarious as a constipated and hypocritical man of the cloth; Giovanni Ribisi is a drawling, full-on Cletus-clone hillbilly with a shack full of moonshine and sluts; and the supernaturally beautiful Natalie Portman is a rebel soldier's widder woman in a melodrama-to-the-max encounter with dastardly nasty damn Yankees. And then there is Renee Zellweger, who gets to chew scenery like a billy goat as the spunky, straight-talkin' gal who shows Southern belle Nicole how to eke out a livin' during the hardships of war.
The first half hour of "Cold Mountain" is so stodgy and uninvolving (even with a mighty big battlefield explosion thrown in) that I thought the whole thing would be awful. (There's also a terribly directed hand-to-hand struggle between Union and rebel soldiers that makes you worry whether the movie even will be coherent, but I guess the rationalization for this is the standard "war is chaos" director's trope.) A lot of the accents sound more condescending than convincing, and parts of the movie are a tad self-consciously serious.
Once you realize the story is going to be more romantic trash than realistic truth, though, it gets a whole lot more likable.
Another reason to appreciate the movie is because it has so many very obvious parallels to America's current senseless war of occupation in Iraq. Men who thought the hostilities would be over in a month end up serving for years. Evil chickenhawk warmongers stay at home bullying the townsfolk while sending soldiers off to die for a pack of lies. I could go on and on.
In a perfect world, every soldier who sees this movie would realize he is being played for a fool and make his own journey home. As Nicole's character says, "If you're marching, stop marching. If you're fighting, stop fighting." This country is being run by a bunch of evil, corrupt psychopaths who are quite willing to empty taxpayers' pockets and sacrifice anyone's life but their own to establish an American empire that is doomed to be despised by every other nation on earth. The sooner America's soldiers and citizens realize that, the better.
Can a movie about the nobility, humanity and integrity of an army deserter change this country before we slide completely down the slippery chute to hell? Couldn't hurt!
VOTE LIBERTARIAN, PEOPLE! THROW ALL OF THE BASTARDS OUT! I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE! SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!
Back Row Grade: C+
(Return to index by closing this window)
|
. |