Review of The Railway Man (2013) by Jude P — 29 May 2015

This one didn't quite do it for me. The Railway Man is about a man named Eric Lomax (Colin Firth) who has just married Patti (Nicole Kidman). Everything seems to be going well, but even though its been 40 years after WWII Eric is still suffering from PTSD.

He has visions of his time as a POW and can't ever open himself to Patti treating her unfairly in the process and neglecting her. One day after the death of a close friend Eric travels to Thailand and encounters Takeshi Nagase (Hiroyuki Sanada) the Japanese interpreter that tortured him while in a prison of war camp.

Takeshi is now a reformed man, but this doesn't stop Eric from plotting his revenge. Overall, the film is very slow paced. It takes almost a full hour (of an hour and forty minute film) for Eric to even travel out to Thailand and to get the plot moving.

There are a lot of flashback scenes which explain what happened to Eric in WWII and I felt like these were the most well done portions of the film including the ending. There's a nice theme of forgiveness in the movie, but unfortunately it is slogged down in the poor narration and slugness of the plot.

Overall, it's just a rent if you're interested.