The Railway Man Reviews

To be honest, I had actually no idea what this movie was about but since there was a nice cast involved, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, I have to admit that I actually really enjoyed the damned thing, even if it took a while to really grab me. At first, it seemed to be dealing with a really cute romance and Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth had a nice chemistry together. Unfortunately for Kidman, even though she was displayed prominently on all the promotional material, she in fact didn't have much to do afterwards since the rest of the movie was very much focusing on Colin Firth's character dealing with PTSD. I think this movie gave another perspective than what we got from 'The Bridge on the Rive Kwai' which might be a huge classic but still gave a rather watered-down view on what happened at the time. Even so, I have to admit that the way they handled this material this time around was still hardly original but Colin Firth delivered here another really strong performance, probably one of his very best, and I was pretty much sold after the heartbreaking ending. Anyway, to conclude, I thought it was really good and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

An autobiographical novel adapted movie that partially covers the story of two distinct eras. One, from the recent time England and another from Thailand during the second world war. About a young man who was in the British army and his sufferings when the British empire of southeast Asia was captured by the Japanese imperial army.

An ex army officer, Eric, by chance meets a strange woman, Patti, on a train journey. The encounter changes their lives forever. Until one day Patti finds abnormality in Eric's behaviour during the sleep. She learns some unbearable secrets during unearthing about his past life. So the screenplay too switches back to the few decades earlier when Eric was a soldier working in Singapore. And it reveals everything he and his men went through during being in the prisoners of war.

Sometime the hating has to stop.

Colin Firth's role was limited. He appeared in the opening and the end few minutes. In his presence, he was excellent, like always. Also looked perfect for the role in that getup. The romance portion that commits in the earlier part of the movie went meaningless once the other story begins to take full control. It also includes Nicole Kidman in the unnecessary cast list to see her in a tiny role. It begins to swap the actors, the young version of Colin's role played by a young actor from 'War Horse' was another brilliant performance throw.

The movie had a little flaw, I mean a drag during the last quarter. The scene where old enemies meet were in fact good, but should have been better. Other than that the message was good relating the words 'foe' and 'revenge'. Actually, it is hard to believe in a true story like this, but anyway it happened. It was almost historical accuracy that I came to know from the BBC's quote. It is another reason why this story deserved to be a movie. With the great star casts and crew it became a fine movie.

7.5/10

Quite a powerful movie, with outstanding performances by the entire cast (Firth, Kidman, Skarsgård, Irvine). Words do not do this film justice. Yes, it's that good. Watch it. You'll understand. But be aware that there are very intense scenes here.