Stars: John Travolta, Nick Nolte
The film that brought director Terrence Malick out of a 20-year retirement to make, is truly one of the most dreadful films I’ve ever partially seen. That’s because after 45 minutes of utter boredom, I walked out. So did several other people.
Actually, I was totally uninterested in the material from the moment it appeared on the screen. It was filled with lengthy, say-nothing voice overs from a multitude of characters with such poor audio quality that I could barely understand what was being said and by whom. Then again, I didn’t care.
John Travolta and Nick Nolte had a scene together on board a warship that made me wonder how they ever became actors. Not only was the dialogue ridiculous (well, we all know they didn’t write it), but, the acting was completely amateurish which confirmed to me that if the film stinks to such a high degree, it is totally possible to make even fine actors appear foolish. John Travolta, in particular, strutted atop ship, looking like something out of a bad acting class.
I don’t care how many fine actors crawled out of the woodwork to make a film with this director. The scenes were too long, the characters were too uninteresting, and frankly, my time is worth more than being bored to death by some artsy-craftsy director who seems to have been out of the loop in more ways than one. Apparently, not even with Sean Penn’s expert editing help could he drag this beast out of the bush.
The fact that this piece of garbage was nominated for an Academy Award only confirms too that Hollywood brown-nosing is alive and well as if we ever had any doubts!
Lotta says throw this one to the warthogs.