Monday, April 30, 2007

More Movie reviews

I recently gave my views on the movie Death of a President. The concept is very good and it makes you think, but with an obviously limited budget its good to have a little imagination while viewing.

So Now I have couple more films to talk about. We'll do the big Hollywood film first.

Blood Diamond. Theres lots of reviews for this film so I'll be brief. Its good, not great but its good film. It felt like they were working too hard to be dramatic in a situation that is already overflowing with drama. A man is stolen from his family and essentially made a slave to the rebel group that is trying to overthrow the government. Another man is selling guns to those rebels in exchange for the diamonds mined by the slaves. Oh then the man who is forced into slaveries son is stolen by the same rebels to train to be a child fighter. And then there is the hot American journalist that shows the arms dealer the wrongs of his ways. Yeah its just too much. I like the message, but it could have cut out several of the sub-plots and probably would have been a better movie. Overall, good movie worth watching, worth renting if you prefer but I can't recommend buying it.

The Road to Guantanamo
. Very interesting movie. The main flaw in it that I see has been brought up by critics already. But I'll get to that in a moment. The story is that of three British Muslim's who traveled to Pakistan for a friends wedding. While they were touring Pakistan they decided to go to Afghanistan to try to help those in need there. They eventually realize there is nothing they can do to try to help and so they try to leave and instead get captured by the northern alliance while traveling with Al Qaeda/ Taliban forces. Yeah there is a bit more to the story that I'm leaving out. They get handed over to the Americans and eventually wind up in Guantanamo for two years and after a total of about three years of incarceration they are let go without ever being charged with a crime. Now the flaw, their story is possible but does not seem plausible. The fact is they could be liars, they might have actually gone to be fighters with the Taliban. I don't know, but I wouldn't rule it out. The important thing is that it doesn't matter. They were captured and held without trial in inhumane conditions without a trial for multiple years. Its wrong, if they were enemy soldiers, then give them a trial and send them to jail. No one will be upset by that. What we don't want is people being tortured until they confess and still not giving them a trial. Actually we don't want torture at all, thats the real point. Watch the movie, you can view it online for free I am told but I haven't bothered finding out how.

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