Review of A Separate Peace

"A Separate Peace" is an American 90-minute movie from 2004, so this is already over 10 years old. Wendy Kesselman adapted the novel by John Knowlses for the small screen here, but the writers' names aren't that known here. The director is. It is British 4-time Academy Award nominee Peter Yates, who directed many big names during his career. One example would be Steve McQueen in "Bullitt". This 2004 film is Yates' biggest work and he really does not go out on a high note here. It is a small screen production and television was far from the quality we have today, so it is a bit sad to see that's where Yates' films landed at that point. Then again, the quality here is small screen material at best. There are many actors in the cast of this film, including J Barton and Toby Moore, the two lead actors, who have hardly or not at all appeared in films after this one we have here. It is the story of two men, who are somewhat friends and somewhat enemies and all in the face of the competitive nature of their sport. Injury and relationships with fellow teammates play a major role as well. But it is never a movie that will have you on the edge of your seat. The lack of talent from the actors made this a very lackluster work in my opinion and the story or drama never worked in a way that it felt compelling or at least authentic. Is that too much to ask for? It is a bit disappointing as there are moments in the script that feel as if they could have been the essence of a quality film. But not with this cast and approach in general. The biggest problem here were probably the two lead actors. I am not surprised at all their careers went south pretty quickly and they have not been in movies for 10 years now judging from what i saw here. Their performances felt really almost interchangeable because neither is making a difference at all with their characters and it seems that most of the time they aren't even trying. I feel truly sorry this is how it ended for Yates. Without having seen most of his work, I am sure he deserved a lot better than this extremely forgettable outcome here and I am not sure to which extent you can blame him. I see the budget here was almost 5 million and that's quite a lot. A prime example of how to burn money in making crappy films. This really should have been a lot better. Not recommended. Final note: According to IMDb, the main language here is German and I highly doubt this is correct. It's probably as wrong as everything else with these 1.5 hours.