Review of The Railway Man (2013) by Glen F — 27 Jan 2014

THE RAILWAY MAN.

Length:- 1hr 56mins.

Genre:- Drama.

Year:- 2013.

Director:- Jonathan Teplitzky.

Cast:- Colin Firth (Eric Lomax), Nicole Kidman (Patricia Wallace), Jeremy Irvine (Young Eric Lomax), Hiroyuki Sanada (Nagase).

Writers: Frank Cottrell Boyce.

The Railway Man is based off a true story and from the autobiography of the same title by Eric Lomax. I haven't read the book but if the film is any indication, it would be well worth the read! I found that the near 2 hour film went by at a heart beat! The story flowed and each scene chapter gave us, the viewer, important information to the main charter, Eric Lomax. Well written, and directed.

The casting was well chosen! The performances from Colin Firth, and Jeremy Irvine that played present and past Eric Lomax were outstanding! I cannot talk more highly about their craft in portraying Eric Lomax. Neither of them dropped a beat! Nicole Kidman that played Eric Lomax's love interest, also did a fine job in playing someone on the outside of what the solders went through, wanting to understand in some capacity what happened to him so to understand why he was the way he was! Although she didn't have a lot of lines; what she lacked in lines she made up for in emotional expressions which was expressed well!

The sets and location shots were brilliant, from the POW camp location that later appears in the film as a museum, to the infamous Burma railway itself! Showing the environment and conditions that the solders had to endure!

The moral to the film are many! One of which I'd like to comment on but would, I think, spoil the film! But I can safely say that any war film has one strong thing to say, and that's, there are no real winners in war! No one is better off from the outcome of war! Only broken and resentful people are left in it's wake on BOTH sides!

From an audience perspective, I felt the movie very entertaining, filled with emotion. It didn't lag at any point of the story and was a lasting experience!

CONCLUSION:-.

The Railway Man is much more than a movie about Thai / Burma railway during WW2. It's more than a movie about the atrocities, the cruelty, torture and war crimes of a nation towards the treatment of POW's. It's about a personal journey of the survivors who although survived the war, still have a war within themselves raging on in the minds of the men that survived cruelty, torture and unspeakable and inhuman treatment by one enemy to another and how those victims cope with those mental scars on an individual bases years after the event!

The Railway Man is a testimony for the broken men, unable to speak of what they went through at the hands of an army that showed a complete disregard for the Geneva Convention that they signed in 1929. It shows how war can scar a man not just physically on the outside but mentally on the inside too, and that mental scars can run much deeper than any physical one. Like an open wound these mental scars never seems to heal.

The Railway Man isn't for everyone, and can leave the viewer to anger and sadness! It shows both the indecency and depravity of man AND his ability to rise about it! It's an emotional journey that will have a lasting effect long after leaving the cinema! I was quite taken and was surprised by its ending!

May films like The Railway Man continue to be made and keep the memory of these great solders alive, what they did for us and what they went through, and the freedom they fought for as they deserved to be! We will remember them, LEST WE FORGET!!!

Star Rating: 5/5.