The Railway Man, 2013.
Directed by Jonathan Teplitzky.
Starring Colin Firth, Nicole Kidman, Hiroyuki Sanada, Stellan Skarsgård, Jeremy Irvine and Sam Reid.
SYNOPSIS:
A victim from World War II’s “Death Railway” sets out to find those responsible for his torture. A true story.
Nicole Kidman can’t play ordinary. She can’t simply exist, she has to carry a certain measure of bravado, not a beige handbag and lacklustre brown hair. The overall product doesn’t try to move, instead it simply exists, dramatically cold and impressively misleading. In further absurd casting, Stellan Skarsgard, so qualified at playing dark, twisted roles, doesn’t try and appears not as a character, but as a piece of exposition against the clunky backdrop of tourist board Scotland.
Well intentioned isn’t necessarily a positive thing. The film is uncertain of what it wants, pushing the horrors Colin Firth’s Lomax suffers to the side for awkward conversations of trains and intense staring. Director Jonathan Teplitzky fails to study the horrors Lomax suffers, choosing to sporadically show scenes of torture as Firth yawns through scene to scene. Powerful moments are rare and few but when successful, they stand out, in particular our introduction to Lomax’s post-traumatic stress disorder.
Teplitzky, in total control of pacing, fails to balance the brake and the throttle, moving at an uncomfortably intense speed before braking hard, halting the film to a sudden, and unwelcome stop. Jeremy Irvine truly tries his hardest but his screen time feels almost unwelcome, as if alien amongst the beige mediocrity of the film around it. These “flashbacks” feel more welcome among the cliched, slot A into slot B programmes evident on television.
As the film enters its final third, an uncomfortable schmaltzy overcomes the film. Any moments of intensity evident earlier-and there are few-get flooded with themes of friendship and forgiveness. This forces a resolution and a confrontation that fails to succeed. Any sense of realism is totally abandoned a payoff lacking any emotional heft, ending in a moment that feels less true of life than awkwardly forced.
The Railway Man is uncertain of what it wants to achieve. From the opening, almost Nicholas Sparks esque sequence to the final awkward resolution, the film feels more welcome on the Hallmark channel. Teplitzky fails to capitalise on the audiences emotions, instead vaguely attempting to hit unreachable targets in a series of uncomfortable and shameful dull set-pieces.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Thomas Harris
Originally published January 12, 2014. Updated April 11, 2018.
