One Word Movie

The Constant Gardener

You know the sort of film this is; the sort where you go in and everyone in the audience laughs at the Orange adverts that you've seen 100 times before; the sort of film where you know the doctor you catch a fleeting glimpse of is going to be important because he's played by Pete Postelthwaite, the kind of film where everyone gets up at the end feeling satisfied that they don't have to go to the cinema for another year, because this is a film for people who don't like film.

I'd heard a lot about how this had been directed by Fernando Meirelles, the bloke who made City of God. And I hoped this meant that it wouldn't result in a boring film. But it turned out that hiring him was a mistake, and he only got the job because the geezer who made Four Weddings and a Funeral was off filming Harry Potter. That gives you an idea of the level of this picture.

There isn't anything to dislike about this film, apart from that it's extremely obvious. You find out pretty soon that Rachel Weisz has written a report about some drug company, and they don't like it, and they have her killed. And Ralph Fiennes spends the whole of the rest of the film working that out. Duh. You can imagine them in the script meetings - you know, Gerald, the twist is that there is no twist. Oh, apart from how obtuse Ralph Fiennes is. Just as I feared, this film is just as shit as the Tailor of Panama, just with better production values.

posted by Chairman Peyote @ 3:33 PM