An average movie

I wasn’t expecting much from this flick but since I have a weak spot for Richard Gere, I still wanted to check it out. Unfortunately, the whole thing turned out to be a rather weak thriller. First of all, it is pretty obvious that Gere made this movie with a personal agenda. Indeed, almost everybody knows that Richard Gere is a persistent advocate for human rights in Tibet and strongly supports the Tibetan Independence Movement. So, it is pretty obvious that this movie is some kind of anti-China propaganda but it doesn’t mean that the whole thing should be bad, at least, that’s my opinion. Unfortunately, they combined the propaganda stuff with some pretty lame Hollywood thriller theatrics. I mean, you have the very nasty Chinese government officials, the White western hero, and the cute Chinese lawyer… To be honest, if you shut your brain down, the whole thing remains watchable but I think I’m being pretty generous with my rating here. One neat thing though was to see Bai Ling when she used to look ‘normal’ before she became this ridiculous circus act. I mean, she even actually seemed to be a decent actress. Anyway, to conclude, it is a really poor thriller and I’m afraid it is not really worth a look, even if you like the genre.

5/10