Bel Canto (2018)

Dull Siege Thriller - Bel Canto review by GI

A ludicrous film but presented with panache and with an exemplary cast. When you add up all the ingredients here you have to wonder at what it's all trying to say. Essentially this is a siege thriller based in a South American country. A rich industrialist holds a party in his mansion essentially to convince visiting Japanese entrepreneur Mr Hosokawa (Ken Watanabe) to build a factory there. The President of the country is invited and international opera singer Roxanne Coss (Julianne Moore) has been booked to perform. In the event the President fails to show and Hosokawa only attends because he is a huge fan of Roxanne. Then the whole party gets taken over by a group of paramilitary terrorists who are mightily disappointed by the President's absence. This all happens in the first twenty mins or so and then the film settles into a long rather boring film where everyone sort of falls for everyone else, friendships are made between terrorists and hostages etc etc until eventually the military storm in and shoot a few people. By the time of the climax you'll have had enough and just to annoy you further there's a ridiculous coda to sit through. A soulless film with the cast attempting to hold it all together. Sebastian Koch is wasted as a UN negotiator, he basically does nothing. And a very strange looking Christopher Lambert is a hostage. A daft idea and a daft film.