The Way Back Reviews

Even though Peter Weir is a very highly regarded director, he has made only 2 movies since 'The Truman Show' was released in 1998. I thought that 'Master and Commander' was rather disappointing and even though his last movie was better, I still thought it was rather underwhelming. Indeed, even though this true (which might be a fake) story sounded really amazing on paper, I'm afraid it wasn't so amazing as a film. Basically, you follow those men and this young woman walking for miles and that's about it. Every once in a while, it seems that they will run out of water or food but, in the nick of time, they always find salvation. This pattern was repeated several times and, at some point, it got really tiresome above all since you already knew that they would survive. Nothing much else occurred even when they encounter Saoirse Ronan, they just kept endlessly on walking. The weird thing is that even though there were not so many characters and even though you spend more than 2 hours with them, you never get to really know them at all and, as a result, they were all reduced to some stereotypes (the leader, the old wise man, the cook/artist, the funny guy, the priest, the thief and the innocent girl). Still, it remains an impressive tale, the directing was solid and the cast was pretty good so I more or less enjoyed it but I think I'm rather generous with my rating here. To conclude, it remains a decent flick and I think it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in Peter Weir's work.

Erittäin hyvä ja onnistunut tekele... perkele et jäi hyvät fiilikset. Tässä on Pahuutta ja hyvyyttä ja kaikkea siltä väliltä. Kaikille selviytymis leffojen ystäville suosittelen tätä... ja myös vihollisille... Oppikaa tykkäämään perkeleen Hannut!

Ps. Ainoa leffa missä sudet näytti sen pienen hetken mitä elokuvassa esiintyivät niin ihka oikeilta susilta... eivät miltään naapurin trimmatuilta Huskylta.

Adventure/dramatic story chronicling the escape of prisoners from a Siberian gulag. Their journey will take them across the desert, snow, trying to reach a non-hostile country; they will fight for food, search for water and of course see companions fight for survival.
Surprisingly a very good movie. Excellent performances. Great make-up and scenery. Kudos to Peter Weir for an admirable direction!

Halfway through the film I was getting worried that this might be the worst misstep Weir, a personal favourite director of mine, had made. At the end of the film despite a few misgivings I'd rank this up there with the best of his work. It's definitely better than FEARLESS at least.

The problem is that the first half is just twitchy and rushed feeling. Despite the plot being relatively simple and being the sort of thing that would favour lots of character development the film feels populated by ciphers. Essentially the film is about a bunch of political (and non-political) prisoners escaping from a Gulag in Siberia in 1939 and walking to India. However the film only really comes alive and makes you feel for these characters after we've spent at least two thirds of the film with them. The problem is that the editing murders the film at times, scenes just going on a second too long and not really connecting with what went before or what goes after. Essentially the first hour of the film feels like it has no connective tissue and as such the ardous trek through Russia feels airless and weightless. You don't get a sense of time or place and whilst Weir films the vistas of Siberia with great aplomb the panoramas ultimately outweigh the cast.

The cast is injected with life by the late arrival of Saoirse Ronan who breathes life into the film and wakes Ed Harris from the hypnotic stupor he's in for the first hour. Ronan gives a sense of warmth and community to the group and it's through her that we start to actually, y'know, like the people we're following. Which is good because the second half is almost completely reliant on you rooting for these guys as they go through hell after hell to finish their journey.

Ronan's reinvogaration of the cast really helps the film storm from a limp to a sprint.