Victory

What I liked the most about this movie is that it was subtle. Nothing was pushed too far, the realistic acting and minimal melodrama made this movie very plausible, watchable and actually made you more in tune to the story, setting and characters in their feelings, where as some movies pour it on too much.

I love Joseph Conrad but the films never seem to work. "The Duellists" was too thin, "The Secret Agent" terrible. "Lord Jim"s the best of a bad bunch so far.

This doesn't up the score much, but it's an honest try. The locations are good and it has the feel of the time and place. Casting is arse over face, with pudgy Sam Neill as the novel's skeletal Mr Jones (hammy, mannered, ineffective) and Willem Dafoe as the novel's pudgy Heyst (very good indeed). Irene Jacob's a blank sheet, but at least she's better here than in "U.S. Marshalls." Best of the bunch is Rufus Sewell, who has Jones' 'private secretary' to perfection, and he's an actor I've no time for in anything else.

Biggest drawback is the narration. Bill Patterson may be great, but he barely keeps his trap shut for more than two minutes. He's always telling us back story, what Heyst thinks, what Schomberg thinks. It's as if Mark Peploe can't let go of the novel or as if the producers didn't think the audience would get it. Considering it sat on the shelf for years, probably the last.

The end is under effective because you never get any feel that the lovers bring each other to life. Dafoe does well, but Jacob is like Isabelle Adjani at her weakest here, doing too little. Good stuff along the way, and Neill does redeem himself with the great line "We are the world, Mr Heyst, come to pay you a visit." Now that's Conrad.

I've loved most Willem Dafoe films. Sam Neill was a joy in "Reilly, Ace of Spies" and "The Hunt for Red October". Irene Jacob is one of the most alluring and talented women in movies, magnificent in Kieslowski's film "Trois Colours-Red"--and good in "US Marshalls". Simon Callow was hilarious as the "Master of the Revels" in "Shakespeare in Love".

Alas, in "Victory", the four leads don't have the the screenplays and directors from their better movies. They become too wooden, one-dimensional, and more like caricatures rather than fleshed out characters.

The story may be based on the work of the late, great Joseph Conrad, but he was unavailable to improve the movie's dialog and pacing. Had Shakespeare been alive, he'd have loved "Shakespeare in Love". Would Conrd have loved "Victory"? I doubt it--except for the Java Sea scenery.

If you watch, ask yourself why it is called "Victory". Except for a minor line of dialog, does the title have anything to do with the movie?

This could have been something really fine. Dafoe, Jacob, and Neil are wasted.

The script seems like a half-hearted attempt to "do" a Joseph Conrad. The director seems lost. Odd, considering he wrote the screenplay--somehow, you would have expected more. It feels more like a project for his resume.

Read the book instead--it's wonderful.

This seems to have been a European-financed project. I don't remember hearing of it back in 1995. Was it even released in North America? I discovered it through an IMDB search.

Victory is one of my favorite books. Victory is not one of my favorite movies. The film sticks pretty close to the original plot, but all the feeling is lost. In the novel, the relationship between Lena and Heyst is heartbreaking. In the film, it's just another bland romance.

Also, Mr. Jones in the book is an extremely thin, spectral character, while Axel Heyst is a solid businessman. So, to me the casting of Dafoe as Heyst and Neill as Jones is completely backwards.

This isn't a horrible picture by any means, but it could have easily been far better.

6/10