Reviews

30 seconds into the film I'm looking up the description on IMDb. Not a comedy? Then why are such good actors playing it so bloody stupid? Probably because the script is way, way, way beyond stupid.

I'm always amazed at these types of films. Didn't any of these 'famous' actors read the script before signing on?

Anyone who saw fit to put this big, festering pile of bat guano on the silver screen should be taken out back and shot. Bad acting in a bad movie with a bad script populated by gross charactures of even more unrealistic people. Robert Duval used to be good. Downy, Jr was a character of a character of himself.

I came here to write a clever review of a paradoxical film, but 'doctorrugger' pretty much summed up all you need to know about the film. It is 'two films' ultimately.

Director Florent-Emilio Siri (of the wonderful "L'ennemi intime") has the chops to make a vacuous script worthy of a made-for TV biopic engrossing from almost the first frame of the film. A stellar performance by Jérémie Renier doesn't hurt either. You really don't like this guy, and that's the point. I wouldn't necessarily call him a 'no- talent ass-clown, but, he certainly had the heart of one.

I recommend watching online video of Claude François BEFORE watching the film. Jérémie Renier's performance makes the real Cloclo seem absolutely wooden.

If you like action movies and are short of gray matter, you'll love this one. But if you have a brain, or even half of one, you'll want your money back.

This dreadful piece of trash is the biggest wast of money, both mine and the producers', that I believe I've ever seen.

Intellectually incoherent, VERY bad acting, mediocre special effects. needlessly convoluted plot and worst of all, completely pointless. All the actors are talented (except Marion Cotillard, who couldn't act her way out of a paper bag, in English anyway), but they were all just phoning it in.

All the positive reviews, of which there are—unfortunately—many, never mention how great the "Story"or "plot" is. The mental midgets who like it rave and rave and rave about the special effects. Well, my dear thinking, tasteful friends, that should tell you something.

Do not go see this movie unless you are escaping open-air radiation.

Within 30 seconds of the film's opening scene, we know we're entering a complex, and very real world.

Later we see Umay, our lead character, lying on a doctor's table and we immediately fall in love with her. There is something magical and loving about the way the camera moves around her. That's all the character development we need, but this heroine (and I mean this in a literal sense; Umay, to me, is a hero in the best sense of the word) continues to evolve and reveal amazing traits in a complicated situation that mere mortals would fold under.

This Turkish film is about familial bonds, deep and abiding love and human rights. It attempts to bridge the gap between traditional cultures and their inherent focus on family as one's primary means of survival, and post-industrial (Western) culture in which human rights and dignity are of paramount importance.

'When We Leave' reminds us westerners of what we sacrificed in the name of economic and political progress while illuminating what is now, to us, a little-understood truth: The "Old Days" weren't always "The Good old Days."

I cannot recommend this film highly enough. Sibel Kekilli's performance as Umay must be the finest role, male or female, of the entire year. And what a face! One could watch the entire film with no audible dialog and be transfixed throughout by this wonderful actor's countenance. Too bad she won't be considered for a Oscar!

I cannot think of a bigger waste of talent.

We had Pacino & De Niro in the Godfather II, one of the greatest films of all time, but they were never seen together in the same scene. Then came "Heat" in 1999 which starred both actors, but STILL they were not in the same scene at the same time (check the editing of the coffee house scene; the parts were filmed separately).

So now, we have them, finally, in a movie in which they are in the same place at the same time, and they SUCK!! What a waste. Jon Avnet should be shot. The writer should be drawn and quartered. and most importantly, the two leads should not be allowed back in Hollywood. I cannot believe the studio would waste their time and money releasing this dribble.