The prissy, leftist political silliness of this movie overwhelms both the talented acting and the skillful direction by child rapist Roman Polanski. We’re supposed to care that a Tony Blair-type Prime Minister played by Pierce Brosnan aided America in having terrorists water-boarded? I mean, just give the man a medal and have done with it!
Great actress. Silly film. But great actress.
The movie, based on a novel by the talented Robert Harris, struck me more than anything as proof of how little these leftists get out, how much time they spend talking only to themselves and confirming their own beliefs to each other. The comic-inspired Kick-Ass, which I blogged about on Monday, has a far wider, deeper and more complex moral vision of what it takes – and what it costs – to do good in an evil world. But then Kick-Ass wasn’t directed by a man who gives drugs to little girls in order to sodomize them, so it had a moral head start there.
Oh, but I do have to say one purely positive thing. Olivia Williams, who wonderfully played the inspiring teacher in An Education (and was also Bruce Willis’s wife in The Sixth Sense), turns in an absolutely stunning performance here as the prime minister’s wife. It’s great, Oscar-worthy stuff, and though all the acting is good, she really is in another dimension of excellence from the rest of the cast. I can’t say the picture is worth watching for her sake, but man oh man, she’s tops.
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