Reviews

She always is a bully. If this was the 1700's she'd be separating Native American children from their families and sending them far away to Indian schools to be re-educated and indoctrinated into Christianity.

Matthau plays a drunk and a bum (similar to the first Bad News Bears & unfunny). He is for himself always and the children will probably wake up to the facts and flee as soon as practicable.

Moreover, the sordid business of horse raising & racing - accurate or not - is completely unfit for children to watch & me too.

Really misrepresented I feel as a Boy & his Horse movie.

Stupidest thing I ever saw - I don't want my kids watching anything so poor. Insulting to the source material and humiliating to all appearing on screen - the crew is spared the public embarrassment and ridicule. Lucky them.

Perfect example of how underdone this series has become.

My one question is: why wasn't the watch (Thomas Wayne's personal timepiece for gods sake) something like a Ferdinand Berthoud FB 1 at least?

Horrifyingly bad. Appalling screenplay built on a dimwitted story, dreadfully directed. An embarrassment to the cast: surprising they didn't off themselves in shame. A wonder material like this gets filmed.

Terrible, terrible scripting and regrettably the director didn't make it any better. Barely watchable; almost like a film school project by first time filmmakers. Only 1 1/2 hours and toooo long at that; over repetitive and overuse of effects. The timeline is difficult to follow because there is too much jumping back and forth although they keep Repeating everything. Must be better treatments of this history. Be sure to watch the feature on Neanderthal man - that was very good!

Zero Stars

No child should have been permitted to appear in this film let alone view it – EVER.

Possibly the most violent movie I have ever seen and I missed the beginning: totally gratuitous buckets of blood and more obscene language than could possibly have any point. There should be a foul word count to see if a record has been broken: this is almost a farce about bleeding, cussing, chasing and shooting. A relentless campaign of sadistic wanton violence.

I feel badly for Cameron Bright and I mean that – really I do: and shame, shame, shame on all of the adults who must be embarrassed that they cannot find real work.

A reminder that 1st time director is code for 'can be bought cheaply'.

The many negative comments on this elegant tale of the rites of adolescent angst insisted I watch again to see what they are talking about. These are teenagers so their actions aren't obliged to make sense. The pregnant pauses and alleged poor acting is awkward emotional teenage behavior mildly obscured because they're bright, articulate kids with lots of rivalries - but there is more going on here.

No one has even mentioned the emotional range of the very powerful snow-shoveling scene – euphoria to unutterable sadness, screaming to silence: terrified kids. While the war is symbolic for the emotional swings of the children throughout the film it is very much less important as an influence.

Thematically what no reviewer seems to see here is the love story which foments the jealous, insecure, blind, ignorant ‘savage underneath', illogical urge to strike out. When you don't know what else to do somebody's going to get hurt: these are scared, hormonal, vulnerable, lonely, forty's boys and coming out just isn't done.

Worse still - it may be unrequited love - even though ‘it's just you and me buddy', and ‘I'm good for you' and the beach is where ‘you don't just come with anybody' and Finny's got himself and Gene undressed down to their underwear every chance he gets. Confusion reigns supreme afterward in the dorm when Gene - hasn't ‘been the same since the beach' - and he's ‘worried about something' unrevealed. And again later when he's wearing Finny's clothes and then again when he's stuttering on the phone.

Consider the reaction – devastation – when Finny thinks Gene might enlist and the ode to friendship that is the Winter Carnival where Gene wins all the gold - after training for ‘the Olympics'. These boys are experiencing feelings which are strong and bubbling over all the time and they have no experience to cope with them.

The confession deals marvelously with the ethical problem of the selfish, sociopathic moment – the stupid impulse – the temporary insanity, when everything was changed forever, but in tears stops just short of Gene telling Finny he loves him. Then again in the hospital - a confession and forgiveness, but no relief from what the lad cannot express: there is no unraveling, no spilling his guts and no moment of truth.

Years later, all the ‘fear and anger returned' - there is no peace, ever.

Not sure if it's the worst movie the wife has made. I haven't walked out on a movie since Crumb, til now. Boring, slow and I still don't know what it's about. When Tom started crying I walked.

Good script, good lines, good acting, good effects, some humor and great ending the way she outsmarts the devil!! Excellent representation of the genre.