| Overall Grade: |
C+ |
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| Story: |
A- |
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| Acting: |
C- |
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| Direction: |
A- |
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|
| Visuals: |
A |
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half a soul
by Annie F (movies profile)
Jun 10, 2008
31
of
52 people found this review helpful
generally I tend to trust the critics reviews, since they tend to be professionals, and the only kinds of movies we don't agree with in terms of the ratings are the ones dealing with pure humorous entertainment (Transformers, Night at the Museum, National treasure), and I am easily amused.
so when I saw that KR was only rated a B-, I was completely puzzled; it was directed by the director of Finding Neverland, which was fantastic, the actors all looked right, what went wrong?
the first 2/3 of the movie I was enjoying it very much, I thought it couldn't possibly fail, the critics were wrong this time; the settings were perfectly as I imagined, even though filmed in China; the language was the original one, not badly Persian-accented English; the storyline was faithfully book-followed (many lines directly from the book); all the Afganistan feels were there; The kite scenes were so beautiful that they were literally breath-taking... until 2/3s into the movie, I realized the movie's biggest flaw that nearly destroyed the film...
The actors JUST. COULDN'T. ACT.
I gotta say ironically, this reflected perfectly how big the problems America has dealing with the middle east right now; mainly that the chances of finding good middle-easterner actors are basically close to zero.
Don't get me wrong, not all the actors did a bad job, the elder ones all did a pretty good job (Baba, Rahim Khan), but unfortunately the protagonists just did not give us the soul of this book-adapted movie.
my biggest disappointment, to start off, would be Amir. Amir, in the novel, is a sensitive, understanding, emotional average boy. Because he was sensitive and at the same time couldn't stand up for himself, he was seen as a "wuss" by his culture standard. But Khalid Abdalla and Zekiria Ebrahimi, in the movie, portrayed Amir as a jealous, nearly cold-blooded, flat-emotioned person (when I found out that Khalid Abdalla played a terrorist before, I gotta submit to the irony). Throughout the movie it was as if the parts where Amir was suppose to cry, the director would tell the actor: "cry" and then the actor would cover his mouth with his hands and then twist his face. This is especially shown when Amir found out about Hassan's death; in the novel Amir broke down, totally; in the movie Amir didn't show even the slightest understanding of that statement and went like: "what happened?" He might as well have said: "so?"
The second biggest disappointment was the Talibans, and this nearly broke my heart: the middle-eastern actors seem to swell in shame and embarrassment in taking the roles of Talibans. They just couldn't be evil, at. all. When Amir was in the room with Assef, who was, in the novel, a mad sociopath. Yet the Assef (and other Talibans) in the movie seem like they were members of a hard-core martial art class. All serious and staring-eyed at you (no, they couldn't even act mean).
Soraya and Hassan (young) were passable, in which Soraya should've been a little more reserved, shy, and humble. And Hassan should've been sweeter.
Because of this, the last bit in which Amir returned to Afganistan (the most important bit in the novel) was screwed over. It was as if the director just couldn't handle the bad acting anymore, if he doesn't simply that bit, no one would have a CLUE what the hell is going on. And I winced at this even more when after the movie, my mother was asking me questions like: "Why did Assef sexually assault Hassan, couldn't they just make it that Assef beat Hassan, why did he have to rape him? how can Amir and Sorhab escape from the Talibans so easily? Why did Sorhab help Amir when he doesn't even know who he is? And how can Amir take Sorhab to America so easily?"
What especially is bad about this is that those who either did not read the book, or have read it long time ago but nearly forgotten it (such as the critics), did not notice the bad actings. They thought that Amir was suppose to be this way, Assef and the Talibans were suppose to be this way, Hassan was suppose to be this way, Sorhab was suppose to be this way etc. After the movie they really don't know what's wrong with it, only that there is no soul, and the story is kind of mediocre. Some say it must be that the Afgani culture was not reflected well, some say the Afgani landscape was not depicted well, some just say "so what"?
But how can we feel the soul of the story if the actors do not show the slightest that they have it? |
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