The Poet

I thought I'd seen WWII done in just about every possible way, but this is the first time I've seen a movie involving German soldiers traipsing through the Polish/Russian countryside gathering information on partisan cells. If only it were done better, and without the ridiculous plot, I'd have been very interested, but it went wrong almost from the start. Terrible screenplay, horrible weird accents, silly love triangle plot etc & etc. While watching it I didn't realize the small part of the rabbi was played by Roy Scheider, who I thought had died before this movie was made, and it amazed me that the actor was so much like that great actor, and at how well the part was being played in such an otherwise poorly acted movie. I caught Scheider's name on the closing credits. A pity such a fine performance was wasted in such a poor movie. Saw this under the DVD title 'Hearts of War.' Thankfully I bought it for a dollar.

After reading some of the bad feedback from other reviews, I decided to watch it anyway. Unfortunately, they were all spot on. Its rather a shame too, as the it 'looked' quite authentic with some decent effort made towards costume and setting. Even the cinematography was at a decent standard.

However, everything else was pretty bad, terrible even. The main thing that let it down was the bad script which led to some appalling dialogue and acting at times. Some scenes are laughable its that bad. The funniest scene been at 43 minutes when a boom mic appears in shot for about 10 seconds.

I've given it a 3 simply for the mise en scene.

I am being generous by giving this movie a 4 out of 10. Please don't be fooled by the "9.3" score it currently has. You can thank the cast and crew of the movie which are obviously rating their movie on IMDb. The only reason this movie gets a 4, is because of that cute girl that came out in that horrible movie "My daughter's secret."

I am being generous by giving this movie a 4 out of 10. Please don't be fooled by the "9.3" score it currently has. You can thank the cast and crew of the movie which are obviously rating their movie on IMDb. The only reason this movie gets a 4, is because of that cute girl that came out in that horrible movie "My daughter's secret."

The Poet is a surprisingly poor to mediochre movie, trying hard to jerk a tear. 'Schmalz' describes it well - a sort of 'Fiddler on the Roof' without the charm. It looks thoroughly naive and unsubtle, as if written by a 19-year-old. It even shows the technological innovation of a 'left-handed' bolt action on a rifle. The lisping pseudo-German English dialogue was pointless and distracting to the point of trying hard to send up "Allo, allo!". Even Roy Scheider played a stereotyped rabbi - I expected "Oy, vey!!" at any moment. The battle scenes give paintballing a bad name, with more than a hint of Star Wars special effects. A waste of a good budget. The idea of lovers from opposite political poles might have worked in a re-setting of Romeo & Juliet on the eastern front, but Shakespeare this wasn't.

If people in Poland during WWII are offered asylum by transport to Canada instead of Sweden or Switzerland, you know you're in for trouble. The plot had gigantic holes in it. Manslaughter gets no penalty, People make social visits to soldiers at the front unannounced, a bloody face becomes perfect in the next scene. Nine months pass and there is no change in season, yet the day after a blizzard, there is no snow on the ground.

The leading female character was written either so unrealistically or just as a tramp, it was really unbelievable. Giving examples would be spoilers.

I think Darryl Hannah and Roy Scheider may not have been doing great movies, but even they had to be embarrassed to be in this one. It's a good thing I saw it for free.