Film Reviews by Philip in Paradiso

In 1893, in Tierra del Fuego, in the very south of Chile, Alexander MacLennan, a Scotsman who served in the British Army, oversees the fencing-off of the land for his employer, José Menéndez, a wealthy landowner who owns thousands of sheep. MacLennan is a very rough and violent man, and he plays the part of enforcer for his employer.

Menéndez asks the Scotsman to lead an expedition across the whole of his estate, all the way to the Atlantic Ocean, on the Argentinian side of Tierra del Fuego. The aim will be to demarcate and reclaim the land. Menéndez makes it clear that, if MacLennan encounters any groups of Amerindians native to the region, they should be eliminated, as he considers that they are a threat to his sheep-raising business (he claims they kill and eat the sheep belonging to European settlers). The Scotsman sets off in the company of Bill, an American cowboy from Texas working for José Menéndez, and Segundo, who is mixed-blood (mestizo) and has been selected by MacLennan because he is a good shot.

The movie develops from there. In many respects, it is an odd, unconventional and unique film you are unlikely to ever forget, once you have seen it. There is something haunting and dark about it. That is, no doubt, linked to the eerie, bleak, mournful and wild landscapes of Tierra del Fuego (I assume it was filmed on location): endless moorland interspersed with forests, snow-capped mountains in the distance and, in places, moon-like scenery of utter desolation. You feel the vastness of this empty, or near-empty, wilderness, its power and its mystery. The music, also, is captivating and hard-hitting. All of this makes the narrative mesmerizing.

In other ways, the film is perhaps a bit frustrating, as not that much actually happens most of the time: there is something slow and deliberative about the pace of the story. And yet, there are several high points along the way, and the end of the movie, which I do not want to spoil for readers of this review, is as unexpected as it is masterful.

The film depicts, more than anything else, an atmosphere - an atmosphere of fear, menace and violence in the midst of this primeval natural world. The underlying theme, of course, is that of the white man purporting to bring Western civilisation, religion and values to the aboriginal population of Tierra del Fuego, deemed to be 'savages'. However, as the film shows, things are not that simple, and the 'savages' may not be those the settlers despise and slaughter so readily.

Overall, a weird and haunting film that I would recommend, but which may not be everyone's cup of tea.

In County Cork, in Ireland under British rule, in 1920, Damien O'Donovan (Cillian Murphy) has decided to leave his native village in order to practise medicine in a hospital in London. For his part, his brother Teddy is involved in Ireland's struggle for independence from Britain: he is the commander of the local flying column of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). Events decide Damien to join his brother, Teddy, and the film shows their involvement in armed operations against the British security forces. The film shows what happened when, after the Anglo-Irish Treaty (1921), which established the Irish Free State as a British Dominion and led to the partition of Ireland, some of the anti-British fighters accepted it, while others rejected it: the Irish war of independence turned into a civil war (1922-1923) in Ireland itself.

The movie is very much a historical drama following a linear narrative. Ken Loach being who he is, the film intends to show that the British occupation of Ireland was a savage and ruthless colonial enterprise - and no doubt, in many ways, it was: the ultra-violent paramilitary forces, such as the Black and Tans, are shown in action in the film. The story is told from the standpoint of the IRA fighters. This is fine, but the movie does feel a bit demonstrative, didactic and predictable at times: somehow, it lacks originality. However, it is a convincing and well-made film. It seems to capture the atmosphere in Ireland in the 1920s very well. I enjoyed watching the movie, even though it may not be the masterpiece that some people claim it is. Somehow, the film is interesting and feels necessary.

In the Battle of Myeongnyang, in October 1597, the navy of the Korean Kingdom of Joseon (named after a dynasty that reigned over the country from 1392 to 1897), under the command of Admiral Yi Sun-sin, fought an utterly desperate and truly heroic battle against the numerically superior invading Japanese naval force in the Myeongnyang Strait, off the southwest corner of the Korean Peninsula. Admiral Yi Sun-sin (1545-1598) is considered a national hero in South Korea: there is a large statue of him along one of the avenues crossing central Seoul. He is to the Koreans what Joan of Arc is to the French or Admiral H Nelson is to the British: the country's saviour.

The background to the naval battle is Japan's invasion of Korea in the late 16th century, known as the Imjin War (1592-1598), in the course of which Japanese forces went on the rampage up and down the Korean Peninsula, slaughtering the locals and pillaging along the way. The Koreans enlisted the support of the Ming Chinese (named after the Ming dynasty, in power in China at the time) to manage to repulse the Japanese army and navy - a fact that gets a brief mention in the film and is not central to the story.

The movie is, overall, an accurate depiction of what happened during the Battle of Myeongnyang, and it feels very raw and very authentic. The music draws you into the story. The reconstitution of the fleets of warships is impressive and the battle scenes are beyond spectacular. The outfits of the senior officers - more particularly the Japanese - are sumptuous, but there is no attempt to gloss over the horrors of naval warfare. I found it easy to follow the story (then again, I do know South Korea, which I travelled around in late 2023), and the uniforms and outfits of the soldiers in the Japanese and in the Korean armed forces are different, which helps to differentiate the 2 sides. Overall, it is an excellent film, full of suspense and drama - one of the best of its kind that I have ever seen.

This is an intriguing film which could be a play: it has 5 characters and all the action takes place in one location - the beautiful villa of a famous writer and his wife. The movie is about the interaction between the 4 main characters, assisted by the near-silent and enigmatic butler, who is the 5th character - the person who sees everything but says nothing.

Liam Sommers (Daryl McCormack) is a PhD student at the University of Oxford. Through a tuition agency, he lands a job teaching a teenager, Bertie Sinclair, whose aim is to sit the entrance exam in order to gain admission to Oxford. Liam is to coach him, the focus being on English literature and exam techniques. Over the summer, while coaching Bertie, Liam is to stay on the estate, as it is far from the nearest town. He is given comfortable living quarters in a small house on the estate. Bertie's father is JM Sinclair (Richard E Grant), a famous and successful writer whom Liam worships. Bertie's mother is the writer's French wife, Hélène Sinclair (July Delpy). Tensions between the 3 adults and the teenager soon surface. Liam learns that Bertie's brother, Felix, committed suicide by drowning - in the beautiful pond situated in front of the family mansion. Felix's death casts its long shadow over the entire family.

The film is a psychological thriller that wants you to believe that it is very, very clever. It did remind me of 'The Swimming-Pool', the 1969 French masterpiece of the genre with Alain Delon. 'The Lesson' is good, but it is nowhere nearly as good as the French classic. Something, somehow is missing: there is a lack of emotional relevance and dramatic tension, despite the director's best efforts. The acting is good overall (R E Grant is more than convincing), but various aspects are rather implausible and what is more problematical is that the story develops slowly and predictably until the climax, at the end, i.e. the last 20 to 25 minutes. That climax, I found very good and very well put together, but it takes too long getting there, somehow. So, I enjoyed the movie but it is not, in my view, quite as good as what some reviewers have pretended.

J Robert Oppenheimer (1904 –1967) was an American theoretical physicist. He was appointed director of the Los Alamos Laboratory, in New Mexico, during World War II. J R Oppenheimer was put in charge of the secretive and strategic Manhattan Project, whose key aim was to develop an atom bomb that could be used against the Axis powers, more particularly Germany (as the Germans were known to be working on a similar project of their own). As a result, J R Oppenheimer is often referred to as the "father of the atomic bomb". Interestingly, he knew Albert Einstein who, for his part, refused to take part in any programme aiming to develop nuclear weapons.

The film is, in essence, a biographical drama centred on the life of J R Oppenheimer, from his stint at the University of Cambridge to the mid-1950s. The story is focused on Los Alamos and the development of the atomic bomb, which went on to be used against Japan with devastating effect. The more personal and sentimental side of J R Oppenheimer's life is also told, and the film is, overall, historically accurate.

On the plus side, it is a very interesting story because J R Oppenheimer was, undoubtedly, a very interesting, complex and fascinating character - a genius who played a major part in the history of humanity, through his role at El Alamos. The movie is well directed by Christopher Nolan and Cillian Murphy's acting (as the lead character) is very good. His interaction (and tussle) with the military man overseeing the project, General Leslie Groves (Matt Damon), is also interesting and will hold your attention.

However, there are a few issues with the film, in my opinion. First of all, it is very long - too long - at over 2 hrs 45 mins. Two hours would most probably have been enough. The story unfolds at a fairly slow pace. It is always interesting, but it is also a little bit laborious, more particularly in the third part of the film, when it turns into one of those typically American courtroom dramas. Was this amount of procedural and legalistic detail necessary? What is more, the style of the movie is somewhat conventional, and I mean by this the way in which the story is told. Despite the frequent and jerky changes of place and time, not helped by resorting to black & white shots as opposed to colour ones - after a while, it gets confusing and the colour-coding does not help the viewer to distinguish between flashbacks and real-time story telling - the story feels linear and, to a degree, predictable.

In conclusion, it is a very good and very interesting historical drama, but it certainly is not the masterpiece that many reviewers have claimed it is. Somehow, there has been a lot of overhype, due to the nature of the Hollywood film industry and the industry's calendar. But you will enjoy it if you like this kind of movie and if you have a spare 3 hours.

The film is a science-fiction movie constructed around the concept of time travel, which combines with what is, in effect, a thriller as well as a low-key love story. This combination, in itself, makes the film interesting, all the more so as it is underpinned by excellent acting by Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe (whose beauty and charm reminded me of Rachel Weisz) and Brad Pitt.

The premise of the film is that a lethal virus, released in 1996, has wiped out 90% of humanity, forcing the survivors to live underground, in some kind of nightmarish, totalitarian retro-futuristic world. A radical and subversive group of activists known as the Army of the Twelve Monkeys is believed to be responsible for the intentional release of the virus. In 2035, James Cole (Bruce Willis), a prisoner held in an underground jail beneath Philadelphia, is selected by a group of officials and scientists to be sent back in time (into the past), so that he may find the original strain of the killer virus. The scientists (of 2035) expect this to help them develop a cure for the virus. In return, Cole is offered a reduced sentence.

The story develops from there, as Cole is sent back into the past, in a desperate, dangerous and surreal quest for the Army of the Twelve Monkeys. A suspension of disbelief is required for obvious reasons in the face of such as story, and yet, in our post-COVID world, the plot may not seem as far-fetched as it perhaps did when the film was made, in 1995. The movie develops in an interesting way, supported by the very good dialogues and excellent acting of the lead characters. Bruce Willis reveals himself to be, in fact, a very good actor, and Brad Pitt is impressive in the way he handles his part.

Overall, it is a riveting and remarkable film, well worth the praise it has received in many quarters. And a movie you will remember.

The film is an American romantic drama, as adapted from the novel of the same name by Milan Kundera, the famous Czech novelist. It tells the story of Tomas (Daniel Day-Lewis), a brilliant brain surgeon, and the women he meets and spends time with. In essence, Tomas is a charming, intelligent and handsome doctor, full of self-confidence, who is extremely successful with women and multiplies sexual adventures, always on the look-out for new targets. He has a steady partner, in what could be called an open relationship, who is an unconventional artist, Sabina (Lena Olin). The backdrop to the story is the political situation in Czechoslovakia at the time: the liberalization of the Communist regime leads to the Prague Spring, in 1968, when the military forces of the Warsaw Pact, led by the Soviets, invade the country in order to crack down on the Czechoslovak experience and re-instate a more repressive and conservative form of Socialism (i.e. of Communist regime).

The film is good and I enjoyed it, although it is a bit long, at 2 hours 45 mins or thereabouts. Milan Kundera himself was unhappy about it, claiming it did not reflect the story as he intended it and as he wrote it. (I cannot judge as I have not read the novel.) Personally, I somehow expected the political canvas to be more prominent; although it matters, of course, Tomas's dalliances tend to take centre-stage. To put it simply, he is some kind of Czech Casanova, to the point where some aspects of the story seem barely plausible. It is enough for Tomas to enter a room, leer at an attractive woman, tell her to "take off your clothes" (literally, just like that), and torrid sex follows instantly.

The other thing I found problematical is the use of the English language. The various characters speak with a range of accents (for instance, Juliette Binoche, unsurprisingly, sounds Franco-Slavic), and they all make an effort to sound vaguely Central European/ Czech, including D Day-Lewis, who tries to sound like a foreigner speaking English. I found this artificial. The sound of the Czech or Slovak language is absent from the film. It made it more difficult for me to relate to the story because, as it happens, I have been to Prague, and I visited Czechoslovakia under Communism on several occasions, hence know the country quite well. Other people may not find this problematical, however, and it was probably inevitable with an international production.

The underlying themes in the movie are interesting all the same: what it means to be living and working in a totalitarian state; whether sex and love differ and to what extent faithfulness is an issue in a relationship, and so on. But even those themes are not explored or analyzed in a particularly deep manner. The title of the movie (and the novel) gives it away up to a point; Tomas is the central character, and his motto could be: How to have fun in circumstances that are not always ideal, and does it matter what I do?

I would still recommend the film and it is worth watching, but I expected, somehow, something more than that.

The film is about Roger Ferris (Leonardo DiCaprio), who is a CIA case officer working in the Middle East. Ferris is trying to find and neutralize a reclusive and secretive terrorist leader called Al-Saleem, in Iraq. The movie is focused on Ferris's mission and what happens to him, in various countries across the region (Ferris ends up in Amman, in Jordan, for much of the film).

This is a fast-paced action movie, full of suspense, which I found very well made and captivating. I am a bit surprised the film has not won more plaudits from reviewers. It may not be Ridley Scott's best or most original work, but it is still a very good and very effective spy thriller, which is plausible most of the time. It reminded me of 'Syriana', among other films of this kind.

One thing that is interesting and seems perceptively shown is the complex relationship between various intelligence services - mostly, the Jordanian counter-terrorism service and the CIA - and also within the CIA itself. Ferris is in constant contact with Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe), who is the head of the CIA's Near East Division and his boss. Hoffman is a cynical, ruthless old hand, and the interplay between Ferris and Hoffman is an interesting aspect of the movie.

Overall, a very good film within the parameters of the genre, which I would recommend.

In Manhattan, in New York in the 1990s, we follow ambulance crews attending to a range of tragedies and incidents on the night shift: murders, suicides and attempted suicides, drug overdoses, comatose drunkards, heart attacks, etc. The central character is paramedic Frank Pierce (Nicolas Cage), and the movie is, really, about his difficulties - to say the least - in coping, emotionally and psychologically, with the job. Frank Pierce suffers from depression, made worse by chronic insomnia. He is the classic case of occupational burnout when it reaches its highest point, i.e. Frank is sinking to his lowest point. Frank feels guilty because, in recent months, he has failed to save anyone on his shift, more particularly.

The film follows Frank from one night shift to the next. Nicolas Cage, in my view, is an over-rated actor: his acting is not bad, but it is not phenomenally good. In the film, he sticks to the same pattern, which is to say he looks more and more haggard as the story develops (unshaven, sunken cheeks, wild eyes, etc.). He has 'burn-out' plastered all over his face: it is quite clear he would need medical attention. The incidents, accidents and tragedies accumulate, sometimes graphic and gory, and yet only Frank seems to be desperate. All around him, the others appear to be coping fairly well with the utter, chaotic mess that New York City is (as depicted in the film). In 'Taxi Driver', NYC by night felt dark, atmospheric, threatening, deep, complex and fascinating. Not so in this movie. It is what it is: rushing from one ghastly emergency to the next.

What saves the film, in my opinion, is not N Cage (see above), but the supporting roles, which are among the best you will ever come across on screen, and the sound track, which is remarkably good and inspiring. Regarding the former, I am referring here to the 2nd paramedic that Frank is on shift with (a different one each time). Some of them are, essentially, nutcases. Ving Rhames (as Marcus) is particularly good: that sequence made me scream with laughter, in fact. And there is a lot of humour in the film: a raw New York kind of humour, which makes the film less gloomy and more like real life. The film is a study in larger-than-life characters, essentially, and this does not include Frank, who is a drip more than anything else, but the others: his team mates and the - often strange - people that they come across in the New York night.

The problem I can see is that the film shows things we have seen before: a big city at night, the crime, the violence, the prostitution, the chaos, and so on. This is not new. And Martin Scorsese did it far, far better in 'Taxi Driver'. There are some human-interest stories, but they are not truly earth-shattering. The film focuses on ordinary people trying to cope in extraordinary situations that are, nevertheless, quite common, in a big American city at any rate. The movie will fascinate you if you are highly interested in the work of paramedics, in ambulances, in hospitals, and in medical procedures. Overall, I do not regret seeing this film, but it is not that exceptional and I feel I could have done without. What it lacks, in the last analysis, is that thick, claustrophobic atmosphere that pervades 'Taxi Driver'. But that's a totally different movie, obviously.

The story takes place in 1870s New York City and other places along the East Coast of the USA. There are 3 key characters. The 1st one is a gentleman lawyer, Newland Archer (Daniel Day-Lewis); the 2nd is the highly respectable and very pretty May Welland (Winona Ryder), who comes from a good family of the East Coast upper class, like Newland Archer: Newland is due to marry her and they are in love. The 3rd key character is May's cousin, an American heiress known as Countess Ellen Olenska (Michelle Pfeiffer). She has returned to New York from abroad, after a failed and, according to some, scandalous marriage to a Polish aristocrat. Newland Archer is caught between the 2 women. Which one is he going to choose? This is, in essence, what the film is about.

The story is, to a large extent and unusually for a film about America, about the class system in the USA. As the film shows, there is - or there was - what a British audience would very easily recognise as a fairly rigid class system in place at the time: social stratification, status, etiquette, propriety, snobbishness, arranged (or semi-arranged) marriages, etc. - all these elements are present in the film, as it depicts the East Coast élite in the late 19th century. The atmosphere in the privileged milieu central to the movie is rendered very well - stifling, controlled, controlling and claustrophobic. Those Americans are more Victorian than the Victorians: it is 'Downton Abbey' in New York City before 1900. In fact, the story made me think of Balzac's novels as well as of 'Pride and Prejudice', by Jane Austen. It is as if Western Europe had been transplanted over to North America... The rigid social norms that are in place create huge tensions within the characters' lives, when love and lust erupt, upsetting the established social order, while forcing individuals to choose between their happiness and their duty to society, to their social class and to their family.

On many levels, the film is very good. The dialogues are witty, sharp, perceptive and amusing. The costumes and settings are simply sumptuous, and both Michelle Pfeiffer and Winona Ryder radiate beauty. The only problem is that the pace of the story is deliberative, descriptive and demonstrative - not quite laborious (this would be unfair) but slow. Not so much happens, in fact. This has to do with the nature of the story and the characters, to a large extent: a lot is left unsaid. But, as a result, there is something stilted and perhaps even frustrating about the film. This is, maybe, deliberate.

If you like period films and romantic intrigues, you will enjoy the movie thoroughly, even though it may not quite be the masterpiece it is obviously trying to be, and many critics have claimed it is.

The film is a thriller constructed around 2 story lines that converge as the movie develops: one storyline relates to the past (the mid-1960s in East Berlin), and the other storyline relates to the present (1997 in Tel Aviv). This is a relatively complex structure, as the 2 storylines are interspersed, but the film works well.

In 1965, Rachel Singer (Jessica Chastain), a young Mossad agent, is on her first assignment in the field. She arrives in East Berlin (in East Germany) to meet 2 fellow Israeli agents who are more experienced than she is: David Peretz and Stefan Gold. Their mission is to capture Dieter Vogel, a Nazi war criminal who has been practising medicine in East Germany. Vogel is known as "The Surgeon of Birkenau", the extermination camp, where he carried out medical experiments on Jews during World War II. The 3 agents must bring him to justice in Israel. In 1997, Rachel (Helen Mirren) attends a party with her daughter, Sarah, in Tel Aviv, held because of the launch of Sarah's book, which is based on the account of the events of 1965 that Rachel, Stefan and David gave upon their return to Israel.

As the film develops, the past catches up with the present. It is an intelligent film, full of tension and suspense, which is quite subtle in many ways, while exploring notions of guilt, integrity, morality, justice and retribution. The characters are not cardboard cutouts as could have been the case. The actors are all very good and convincing. The movie has pace and suspense, without indulging in clichés. A key question the film asks is: What is the truth, and does it matter as much as we think? A very good film I would recommend.

Max Durocher (Jamie Foxx) is a Los Angeles cab driver who dreams of starting his own limousine business. Vincent (Tom Cruise) is a professional hitman, who has a list of persons to assassinate that night. Vincent gets into Max's cab and tells Max that he is in Los Angeles for one night in order to complete a real-estate deal; Max agrees to drive him to several locations. The story develops from there.

This is very much an action thriller involving 2 main characters (Max and Vincent), and a number of secondary characters. The central performance is that of Tom Cruise (excellent as the driven, near-maniacal professional killer) and Jamie Foxx (equally good as the Mr Average who finds himself caught up in a chain of events he could never even have visualized in one of his worst nightmares). In spite of the type of film it is, it actually is deeper than it may look. For a start, the dialogues are excellent. To a large extent, the film pitches one man (the killer) against another (the cab driver): the way they relate to each other is interesting, nuanced and oddly plausible.

As a thriller, this is an excellent film: fast-paced, tense, full of suspense, with unexpected twists and turns. Towards the end, it turns into a sentimental drama as the story reaches its climax. There are some amazing scenes, such as the one in the night-club. Although the film is, ultimately, a case of style over substance (as pointed out by some reviewers on this website), I would still recommend it as a memorable piece of cinema.

Griet (Scarlett Johansson, age 19 when the film was made) is the central character - the girl with a pearl earring of the film's title and the subject of the painting by Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675). Griet is a shy and simple girl living with her parents, in the days of the Dutch Republic, in 1665. Griet's family is in a difficult financial situation and she is sent to work as a maid in the city of Delft. She has been hired by the famous painter, J Vermeer (Colin Firth). The film develops from that point onwards.

The film asks the following questions: Who was the girl with the pearl earring in J Vermeer's painting? What was the connection between her and the painter? The movie imagines who the girl with the pearl earring was, on the assumption that she was a maid working for J Vermeer. The film shows us how Griet adapts to her new life and the people she meets, and how she learns to fit into the family. J Vermeer's artistic work is an important part of the story and how he came to paint the famous painting with the girl in question.

This could easily have been a boring film, if you think about it: describing how a work of art of this nature came to be made could have turned into a dreary tale. Not at all. It is a fascinating and delightful film. It is subtle, sophisticated, intelligent and beautiful. And S Johansson's excellent and delicate acting gives meaning to the movie and supports the narrative in a striking manner.

The atmosphere of 17th-century Holland is reconstituted in a remarkable way, down to the smallest details, and you feel you are literally there, by the side of Griet and J Vermeer. It is a film about the making of a work of art, but it is also a film about Griet, the central character. In the last analysis, the film itself is a work of art of great quality. It should not be missed.

PS: Among the special features, after watching the film, you should not miss the short documentary (<15 mins), "The Making Of": It explains how the house (where the painter and his family live) was built from scratch for the movie. It is quite amazing.

We are told the story takes place in the 'not-too-distant future': it depicts a society that is dystopian, totalitarian and repressed, where people are screened and discriminated against on the basis of their genetic profile (genotype profiling). The difference is made between the 'valid' members of society, who are deemed more capable and have had their genetic characteristics improved before birth, and the 'in-valid' members, who are all the others, destined to carry out manual and unskilled tasks.

Although the story takes place in the future - with electric cars and futuristic architecture - in many ways the design of many objects (including the cars) and the style of dress of office workers - all dressed formally, with the men in grey suits and dark ties - are redolent of the 1950s or early 1960s: this is known as 'retrofuturism'. It made me think of the movie 'Brazil', the 1985 dark comedy directed by Terry Gilliam, which is a masterpiece.

The central character of the story is Vincent Freeman (Ethan Hawke), who has always dreamt of taking part in space travel to the outer limits of the solar system. To a large extent, the film is about his life and what he does to achieve his goals.

Where the film is very good is in creating a haunting atmosphere, and it does this in a very effective way. The dialogues are also very good, with excellent acting performances by the various actors, including Jude Law and Uma Thurman. On the other hand, the 'message' conveyed by the film probably is not as deep and complex as many have claimed. The pace of the story is slow, mostly, and there is something a little bit ponderous, gloomy and deliberative about the movie. So, it is an interesting and perhaps even captivating film, but it is not a masterpiece.

The story takes place in Scotland, in the early part of the 18th century (starting in 1713). The central character is Rob Roy (Robert Roy MacGregor, played by Liam Neeson), who is the chief of a clan of Scottish Highlanders, Clan MacGregor. Rob Roy is a respected figure locally, who prides himself on his honour in every aspect of his life. He provides the land-owning gentry with protection against cattle rustling. However, his family and his community are poor. Hoping to launch a profitable business venture involving the sale of cattle in England, Rob Roy borrows £1,000 from James Graham, Marquess of Montrose (John Hurt, outstanding as always): Rob Roy, with the money, will become established as a cattle trader. But things do not go as per his plan. The film develops from that point into a swashbuckling adventure.

It is a very good period film. The landscapes (it was filmed in Scotland) are splendid and we get a sense of what Scotland was like at the time (the plot is based on a true story). The attention to detail in the re-creation of Scotland in the early part of the 18th century is second-to-none (the interior of houses, the clothes the characters wear, the weapons in use, etc.). The actors' performance is excellent and the dialogues are brilliant as well as entertaining. The contrast between the various social classes, and also between the manners of the local Scots and those of the aristocrats spending time at Court in London, is very intelligently built into the storyline.

I would have a few reservations, however. First of all, the plot is somewhat predictable. Second, some of the characters are stereotypes (the sincere and warm-hearted highlander, the rustic Scotsman, the effete and scheming Englishman, etc.). Tim Roth as Archibald Cunningham overdoes it in my view: I do not want to give any details as his part is central to the movie and viewers will want to discover it for themselves. Having said all this, it is a very good film, and a highly enjoyable one to watch.