Let me first say that I am a huge fan of both Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman. I am also a big WW2 enthusiast. So why did I dislike this film so much? Well, put simply, its a bore. It is a long sequence of angst ridden scenes, where very little actually happens, occasionally interrupted by scenes of brutal torture inflicted by the Japanese guards on British soldiers in a WW2 labour camp. The opening scene where Firth's character meets Kidman's on a train in 1980s England is embarrassingly bad. The scripting is so contrived as to be mechanical. From there, the movie sinks into a mire of self pity and torture, mostly endured by the audience. A ray of hope arrives when Firth's character returns to the camp many years later to confront the guard who tortured him and who is now working as a tour guide in the camp which is now a museum. But this showdown becomes an inevitable anti-climax and a movie which started badly and got bogged down in the middle ends on a bewildering feel good note. I know it is based on a true story and some people might say it is churlish of me to criticize any movie based on real events. But some stories, no matter how true, just aren't that interesting. This is one of them.
Review of The Railway Man
