OP_Pimiento

Dear Frankie has got to be one of the most clever, well directed, and subtly complicated movies to be released in the past ten years. I will always have a place in my heart for father/son movies, no matter how cheesy or unrealistic. But the poignancy of this movie in particular has really struck a chord with me that I will never forget.

My father died of pancreatic cancer on my fourth birthday and I didn't talk about it until I was 22 years old. I actually remember the day quite well and the funeral a few days afterward. I had only two memories of my father himself and neither were pleasant. The first one was when he whipped me with a belt for telling him to "shut up" and the other was of a skeletal man in a wheelchair who wanted to look at my sister and I one last time before he died.

It wasn't until I was a teenager that I learned of my father's alcoholism, drug abuse, and tendency to hurt people in our family. My mother tried to protect me from the truth as did Frankie's mother. I completely understand the situation of Lizzie and her attempts at raising her son to be different than his father by painting a rosier light of who he was.

This is a movie that is meant to make people feel something. The actors, the musical score, carefully scripted dialogue is meant to evoke an emotional response and it is done so quite well. As the son of a widow, I highly recommend this movie for any man who grew up without a father. It is right up there with 'Frequency', 'Road to Perdition', 'Field of Dreams', and 'October Sky' as a father/son movie.

10/10 stars.

There are several elements of this movie which contribute to its grandeur. The fine cast headed by Sean Connery and Donald Sutherland played their roles splendidly and realistically. The elaborate setting places the audience in the movie. With such authentic train terminals, Victorian homes with furnishings to boot, and historically accurate costumes, "The Great Train Robbery" is an excellent Victorian Era piece.

I was extremely impressed with the stuntwork involved in this movie. I do not wish to reveal the ending, but look for Connery's VERY dangerous and VERY real stuntwork. It's something to remember when you see the pseudo-dangerous special effects movies of this decade, where all the danger is eliminated by computer animation. Connery REALLY does this sequence and he could have been killed at any moment.

One final word, be sure to read Crichton's novel by the same name as the movie, otherwise you could be easily lost in the Victorian dialect and the thieves' jargon.

If this movie seems awfully similar to Jurassic Park, that is because both movies were created by the same man, Michael Crichton. Apparently, Crichton hit the spot early in his career with this Disneyworld-gone-bad movie.

There are several things that Crichton does right with this movie. First, he makes the amusment park, Delos, a desirable place to visit. With three fantasy worlds of Medieval World, Roman World, and Western World, he offers different choices of battle,role-playing, sex, and fun to all visitors.

Secondly, he makes the plot realistic. Although he feeds off it in his second amusement park movie, he shows the audience how easy it is to switch from pleasure to terror.

And lastly, see if you can find any resemblance of Yul Brynner's gunslinging persona to Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator. I think that it is more than a coincidence. This all gives Crichton and "Westworld" the upper hand considering this movie predates Cameron's "Terminator" by 10 years.

This movie is definitely fun and interesting to watch.

Pepper Thompson