Review of The Railway Man (2013) by Rajansatish P — 24 Jun 2014

Again, we have a film that relies TOO much on the fact that it's based on a true story. I don't care if the real story is very touching, I don't care if it happened in real life, what I care about is if the story is told properly.

The Railway Man is the story of an officer obsessed with trains that went through "something" during the war, and that "something" is keeping him to spend time with his wife and being entirely sane.

Yeah, we don't know what that "something" is until almost the end. Thanks to that I couldn't care less about the character. This story is supposed to be tough, but there were no scenes where I could actually identify with the character because the director was merciful with what he depicted on screen.

I don't think Colin Firth did a good job in this, I'm sorry, I didn't buy he acted as someone who had a repressed PTSD, especially since it was about a war trauma. Nicole Kidman, what can I say? Her character was as boring as the movie itself.

A fair share of the dialogue seems quite forced into this, clichéd corny lines are told by almost everybody. Even the score got on my nerves for being so improper all the time. So basically what The Railway Man was for me was something with a terrible storytelling structure, lousy dialogue, bad casting, and a waste of my time and money.

Oh no wait! Go see it! It is based on a true story. Disregard everything I just said.