reddpill

Imagine that the Marx Brothers decided to write a movie about divided Berlin at the time of the Berlin Wall, then refused to appear in it. You would probably get something very close to this. The film is a steady string of silly jokes that deliver a smattering of chuckles but no belly laughs, delivered every few seconds with scarcely time for the actors to breathe. As Arlene Francis says in one line, "No, I don't think it's funny."

James Cagney is C. R. MacNamara, a Coca-Cola executive in West Berlin whose boss in Atlanta sends his teenage daughter Scarlett (a lame GWTW reference to go with the phony southern accents) to stay with the MacNamaras to keep her away from a rock & roller she is engaged to. Instead of keeping out of trouble, she sneaks into East Berlin and marries a young fully-indoctrinated communist (Horst Buccholz). This provides the opportunity for Cagney and Buchholz to deliver a non-stop litany of bad Cold War stereotypes.

Finland banned the film, concerned that the anti-communist attempts at humor would harm their relations with the Soviet Union. They should have been concerned that it would harm their relations with the US. Apparently Abby Mann (the screenwriter for "Judgment at Nuremburg") was so disgusted by the film that he felt obliged to apologize for it at the Moscow Film Festival despite having nothing to do with film himself. That should give you an idea.

Was this remake horrible? No, but it also wasn't that great. In only a couple of scenes did this film lift itself above mediocrity. In comparing this update to the 1981 version, the original is simply better on every point. Russell Brand is probably the best choice they could make for the lead, but he doesn't measure up to Dudley Moore's Arthur. And the wonderful Helen Mirren does her best, but she just can't match John Gielgud's witty portrayal of Hobson. The writing fell particularly short of the mark. The one bright spot for me was Greta Gerwig, whom I had not previously seen. She did a fine job of making a thinly-written character become real. I look forward to seeing her in the future.

For the most part, I liked this film. It had a good story, based on historical people and events, some taut drama, a nice little love story on the side. It was well-shot and mostly well-acted.

There are, however, a couple of significant problems with the film. First, there are the accents. Most of the actors made little effort at developing believable accents and spoke in their own accents. I could have lived with this, although some credible accents would have helped. What was really objectionable was Ron Perlman, who tried to speak with an accent, but it came out more Australian-sounding than Russian. He would have been better off just using his American accent.

My other chief objection involved the climactic scene. Without delivering any spoilers, I will only say (as others have) that it seemed to have been plucked straight out of a western movie. There was not even any subtlety to that allusion, and it served no purpose in the film. My guess is that writer-director Jean-Jacques Annaud was a fan of those classic western showdown scenes and wanted to incorporate the look as a matter of style. It didn't work.

Having made those objections, however, I will re-iterate that my overall impression of the film was positive. If you enjoy a good war film that is not just a "rally round the flag" kind of glorification of war, you will probably enjoy enough to make it worth watching. Just don't expect it to be on your list of all-time greats.