Although the production values are high and the pace stately, The Railway Man looks like it’s on course to end as a standard revenge drama, with Eric finally taking vengeance on his tormentor. While well performed, there’s nothing that sets The Railway Man apart. When she does appear, Kidman is underused, stuck trying to pry from Finlay clues about Eric’s background that her husband is too traumatized to open up about. Up to that point, The Railway Man pales in comparison to other prisoner-of-war films, and fights a structure that takes away one of its stars (Kidman) for long stretches of screen time. The punishment scenes are difficult to watch and earn the film its R rating. When Eric learns via a radio broadcast that the tide of war has turned in the Allies’ favor, he spreads the word and is soon brutally punished for doing so by a vicious Japanese officer, Nagase ( Tanroh Ishida). Captured in Asia, Eric (the younger version of whom is played by Jeremy Irvine) keeps close tabs with his fellow soldiers, including Finlay (played by Stellan Skarsgard later in life, and by Sam Reid during the wartime sequences), as they are forced by the Japanese to build the Burma Railway. As Patti soon comes to realize, Eric is plagued by flashbacks to, and nightmares of, his time as a prisoner of war during World War II. Railway Man is a genuine surprise-a film that heads toward a revenge drama before pivoting into a much more profound story.īut there’s a troubled soul under Eric’s surface politeness and fixation with trivial details. This weekend Heaven Is for Real, starring Greg Kinnear and directed by Randall Wallace ( Secretariat), looks to keep the momentum going for faith-based stories targeting religious filmgoers.īut there's another movie expanding its run this week that hasn’t been aggressively promoted to Christian filmgoers, yet it’s an inspiring, powerful film that revolves around the tension between justice and mercy, and our all too human tendency to desire the former rather than the latter. ![]() ![]() With much less promotion, and without a big-name star like Noah’s Russell Crowe to generate interest, another film aimed at Christians, God’s Not Dead, has quietly become one of the most profitable Christian films of all time, now at $42 million and counting against a production cost of $2 million. Others championed the artistry behind the film, and audiences turned Noah into an international hit, if not the huge success in North America it looked like it might be after its big opening weekend. Darren Aronofsky’s Noah was marketed to Christians, many of whom debated the film’s extra-Biblical take on the familiar story. Rating: R for disturbing prisoner of war violenceĬast: Colin Firth, Nicole Kidman, Stellan Skarsgard, Jeremy Irvine, Hiroyuki Sanada, Sam ReidĢ014 has seen a revival of interest in films aimed at Christian audiences.
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