Review of The Constant Gardener (2005) by Keng. — 10 Sep 2005
Intelligent thriller, which was well acted and also works as a poignant love story, thanks largely to genuine chemistry between Fiennes, and Weiss. It is also nice to see that this movie understands that a thriller doesn't have to have large body counts, or characters whose only point in being in the movie is to be knocked off.
I hope Hollywood is taking notes, but I doubt it. However, this movie blows its ending (alot of movies this year have done that) for 2 reasons. First of all it is overly vague, (and takes on an artsy-pretentious feel) even allowing for the fact that not everything has to be spoon-fed to us.
Secondly, it feels phony. Fiennes makes a decision that it doesn't feel believeable he would make at that moment. Maybe later on he would make a similiar decision, but at that time he would want to see things through and make sure things worked out the right way, and not trust it to fate and a stranger, when things could still go wrong.
Overall I enjoyed the movie, but because of the ending I did work out with an unfulfilled feel.
This review of The Constant Gardener (2005) was written by Keng. on 10 Sep 2005.
The Constant Gardener has generally received very positive reviews.
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