A fairly watchable movie. The story is pretty tense, as it is common for the "I lost my memories" stories, besides, the idea of soldiers having strange memories and contradicting dreams about the wartime is a gold mine, and it fits just about right in the current political situation. So what do we do? We dig the gold. Right? Nevertheless, after about 15 minutes you can figure out what's happening, and 5 minutes after that you hear it all said in plain English, so there's no much intrigue about it. But between director, cameraman and editor, with some help from the actors, they managed to keep the movie watchable till its end.
The acting is very good, Denzel Washington is amazing depicting a paranoidal soldier, but Meryl Streep's character is so much one-sided that I see nothing to talk about there: good performance, but it would fit better in a comic book adaptation. It's a shame they didn't use Meryl's dramatic talent more, they could have. I think it's about the script and directing.
One thing I'd like to mention: there's a strange theatrical feeling about this movie, kind of similar to Kubrick's "Clockwork Orange". Something grotesque and out of place. Like the director was consciously but subtly trying to convert this somewhat serious script into a farce.
Probably it's because this is a remake of something pretty much old, and here and there you can see the old dusty skeleton under the new flashy clothing. Bizarre. The "secret laboratory" scenes looked like a stylistic tribute to the 60ies' James Bond movies, or probably to the original "...Candidate".
All in all, the movie is pretty solid for a remake, though the farce notes make it look not as serious as it could have been. And it is enjoyable if you can come to terms with how phony it is. I give it a 6 out of 10.
The acting is very good, Denzel Washington is amazing depicting a paranoidal soldier, but Meryl Streep's character is so much one-sided that I see nothing to talk about there: good performance, but it would fit better in a comic book adaptation. It's a shame they didn't use Meryl's dramatic talent more, they could have. I think it's about the script and directing.
One thing I'd like to mention: there's a strange theatrical feeling about this movie, kind of similar to Kubrick's "Clockwork Orange". Something grotesque and out of place. Like the director was consciously but subtly trying to convert this somewhat serious script into a farce.
Probably it's because this is a remake of something pretty much old, and here and there you can see the old dusty skeleton under the new flashy clothing. Bizarre. The "secret laboratory" scenes looked like a stylistic tribute to the 60ies' James Bond movies, or probably to the original "...Candidate".
All in all, the movie is pretty solid for a remake, though the farce notes make it look not as serious as it could have been. And it is enjoyable if you can come to terms with how phony it is. I give it a 6 out of 10.