Netflix Instant Review: The Way Back (2010)

The Way Back (2010)

Director:  Peter Weir (The Truman Show, Master and Commander)
Starring:  Ed Harris, Colin Farrell, Mark Strong, Jim Sturgess and Saoirse Ronan
Genre:  Historical Fiction, Drama, Adventure
Run Time: 133 minutes
Ratings: IMDB - 7.3/10, Rotten Tomatoes - 75%, Netflix – 3.6/5,

Storyline:
The story is based on the tale of Slavomir Rawicz and his multicultural gang as they escape from a Siberian prison camp during WWII.  Their harrowing journey takes them south to Mongolia, across the Gobi Desert, into Tibet, through Narnia, over the Himalayas and until they finally reach India.  Think Entourage meets Frodo’s journey into Mordor minus the hyper-aggressive agent and orcs.  Between braving the elements, starvation, wildlife and pinko commie bastards, the couple thousand mile stroll takes its toll as they end up toothless and scabby with funny accents and slurred speech; basically your average resident of Alabama.  Some of them also die.  Whoops, spoiler alert.

Review:
This is a long movie and you’ll probably feel every minute of it but that is Weir’s intent.  While the truthfulness of the story is debatable at best , it’s still a pretty epic tale nonetheless.  The film follows around a group of guys as they traverse Asia, so a number of shots show the harsh landscapes of the Russian wilderness, arid deserts and the snowy peaks of the Himalayas (albeit they only spend approximately 3 minutes in the mountains).  The movie moves at a pretty slow pace and that’s probably so the viewers can fully experience how much it would suck to have be a part of the journey (it would suck a lot).  Here’s an interesting fact for you, The Way Back was nominated for the Oscar in the Best Achievement in Makeup so that’s something.

I was surprised to see there are a handful of known actors in the film considering I didn’t know it existed up until 5 minutes before I watched it.  The lead character Janusz is played by Jim Sturgess (21, Across the Universe), Mark Strong (RocknRolla, Body of Lies, Sherlock Holmes) is a fellow political prison camper and Saoirse Ronan (Hanna, The Lovely Bones) joins the crew halfway during their trek.  Ed Harris plays the role of the stern yet fatherly American, so basically he plays himself, and Colin Farrell puts his acting talents to the test by playing an unhinged, stabby Russian (the 2^nd most popular Russian caricature behind the evil billionaire gangster/mastermind).  The acting is pretty good considering nationalities of the actors are as diverse as the characters they’re playing and it’s not like most American’s can tell the difference between any of the Eastern European accents.

The movie itself was good.  Like I said, it moved slow but for it was well acted and Weir does a good job of making you feel the perilousness of the their journey.  I don’t think I’d watch the whole thing over again but give it a watch if you’ve got a couple hours to burn.

1 to Awesome:
Somewhere between ‘meh’ and ‘strong meh’

No related posts.