Review of The Promise (2016) by Marc Y — 20 Oct 2017

"I know that the studio's main purpose was to bring attention to this story besides making money but Open Road should've tried harder because "The Promise" fails on all angles".

DVD Movie Review: The Promise.

Date Viewed: July 26 2017.

Directed By Terry George (Hotel Rwanda, Some Mother's Son, Reservation Road and Whole Lotta Sole).

Written By Terry George and Robin Swicord.

Starring: Oscar Issac, Charlotte Le Bon, Christian Bale, Daniel Giménez-Cacho, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Rade Serbedzija, Marwan Kenzari, Andrew Tarbet, Abel Folk, Angela Sarafyan, Armin Amiri, Yigal Naor, Garen Boyajian, Kevork Malikyan, Numan Acar, Tom Hollander, Jean Reno and James Cromwell.

"The Promise" just fails to keep it's promise. The film centers around the Armenian genocide, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and a "Pearl Harbor"-style love triangle. "The Promise" obviously has an emotionally stunning story to tell but it just covers too much. The film was directed and co-written by Terry George who made "Hotel Rwanda" which was based on another true-life genocide. It was a riveting and powerful film, "The Promise" on the other hand spends a good majority of it's 133 min running time on a hopelessly contrived love triangle.

The actors do the best they can with the flimsy material and it obviously really, really, really means well but this dramatization of the 1915 Armenian genocide simply fails because of it's problematic and inert script. The film stars Oscar Issac as Mikael, an Armenian medical student who's determined to bring much needed medical attention, food and supplies to his small village of Sirun. His medical practices allow him to travel to Constantinople and attend the Imperial Medical Academy where he befriends the son of a high-ranking Turkish official, Emre (Marwan Kenzari) and meets a Paris-born Armenian artist named Ana (Charlotte Le Bon).

Mikael really likes Ana but unfortunately she's involved with somebody else and that somebody is American reporter and photo-journalist Chris Myers (Christian Bale). Eventually their Armenian heritage and activisms cause Mikael and Ana to fall in love but their attraction makes Chris upset and the two men have a soapy romantic rivalry. However, when the Ottoman Empire falls and the Turks align with the Germans by turning violently against their own ethnic minorities, Mikael and Chris are forced to work together and get everybody from Mikael's ancestral village to safety before all chaos breaks loose.

The depictions of these real-life atrocities are much too strong for this film which is rated PG-13, the three main performers (Issac, Le Bon and Bale) do what they can but the film gets overshadowed by their silly love triangle subplot. Terry George (Hotel Rwanda, Some Mother's Son, Reservation Road, Whole Lotta Sole) is an impeccable filmmaker but when it comes to bringing good war and love stories to life, "The Promise" is a million miles away from "Doctor Zhivago", "Casablanca" or even "The English Patient".

The film does have elegant cinematography and a unique production design but it has storylines that don't go anywhere and the love triangle brings the entire movie to a halt. "The Promise" also has notable supporting work from Oscar-nominee Shohreh Aghdashloo as Mikael's mother, Rade Serbedzija as the mayor of a small Armenian town who rallies his resistance to fight against the genocidal Ottoman army, Jean Reno as a French admiral and James Cromwell who only pops up in two scenes as U.S. ambassador Henry Morgenthau Sr..

I know that the studio's main purpose was to bring attention to this story besides making money but Open Road should've tried harder because "The Promise" fails on all angles. This old-fashioned war tale simply needed a big re-write.