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Running time: 121 mins
Reviewed by rogerco, DVD proj @ home on 21 Jan 2023
Obviously this is a difficult true story to dramatize as in real life its a slow burn that can't easily be compressed into 2 years. Two main quiblles with the film - firstly that the character of Josie didn't seem tough enough to have done that - especially played by a slender beautiful woman. Secondly the courtroom scenes, particularly at the climax, were a bit ridiculous - I don't believe a lawyer would be allowed to browbeat a witness in quite that way even in the US.
Running time: 120 mins
Reviewed by rogerco, Streamed proj @ home on 14 Jan 2023
Sometimes I had to close my eyes (teeth being extracted etc) and some of the fight scenes were overly cartoonish, but the mise-en-scene was impressive and the unfolding of the plot was satisfying. Hitchcockian in that it keeps you too wrapped up in the lead character's point of view to see what in retrospect is obviously going on. Not suspenseful though.
Running time: 107 mins
Reviewed by rogerco, DVD proj @ home on 07 Jan 2023
It is almost a meta-film about the film industry, but mostly its just another excuse for some action sequences involving cars and guns and jumping off cliffs etc. Once he gets to the island it starts off on a wisecracking buddy track as Nick and Javi circle around each other, but sadly it declines into a routine 'straight-to-video' (or nowadays straight-to-streaming) flic of no great value.
It is entertaining in parts, but there's more than a touch of misogyny in the treatment of the female parts, and the cartoon CIA operatives and black clad baddies are risible. Not quite unbearable but pretty ponderous.
Running time: 145 mins
Reviewed by Roger CO, Streamed proj @ home on 31 Dec 2022
The mystery and promise of the opening with Travis appearing from the desert is not satisfyingly resolved. Some of it is good to look at, and Harry Dean Stanton can act ok, but for the most part it is just not very interesting.
Running time: 100 mins
Reviewed by rogerco, DVD proj @ home on 20 Dec 2022
It starts by concentrating on two faces, for the first few minutes we only see Marziyeh filming herself talking to camera, then we cut to Behnaz's face for a few minutes as she is in Jafari's car heading north and they are discussing the video.
It then opens out to more conventional shots as they get near the village, but the people they encounter seem alien to my western eyes and their motives and meanings are unclear. As the truth about Marziyeh unfolds through her family and friend, Maedeh (?), we see an ancient self contained community living in what seem tumbledown homes and the incipient conflict between the pressure of the modern and the rock of community and culture.
In the end Marziyeh does 'escape' with Behnaz and Jafari - but isn't she escaping to a more gilded and less substantial cage? Perhaps this is the meaning of the unseen third face of the old pre-revolution actress who has retired to live alone and isolated in the village and who has befriended Marizyeh..