Jason Dennis (JasonDennis91786)

this film is something of a poor man's citizen kane, about a man who seems reasonable to me but is apparently a jerk and everyone he meets keeps telling him he's a jerk, that he has no soul, no feelings, etc. while being entirely hypocritical and causing him to regret the way he's lived his life. except in this movie, the protagonist is very clearly thinking about death, while he isn't in citizen kane. the dream sequences were interesting but i found the allegory of the temporal plot a bit too exact. i found a lot of philopsophy by dialectic in this film, god's existence, death, and love being the topics. i found it interesting how the doctor is so loved by strangers yet treated like dirt by his family, who seems to adore undercutting him with deadpan comments. i want to tell the protagonist in this movie to just accept who he is and quit feeling guilty because other people tell him he should. maybe they, god forbid, could also be selfish and cold, but you just don't say it to their face because you, you know, have decency.

this film is very flawed and plays like a tv movie. it has bad acting and badly staged gunfight scenes, some very on the nose dialogue and cheesy personal conflicts. but a lot of the critical panning i've read on the film is just ludicrous to me. first of all, they say the film is bloody as hell. not so. i'm shocked this was rated r. yeah, they kill women and children, which is daunting, but it is not graphic. at all. the critics say the movie overemphasizes the fact that the events occurred on september 11. maybe the advertising did, but in the actual movie there is one damn title card just before the actual massacre plays out and that's it! and, get this, equal emphasis is given to other dates! also, in what way are the settlers idealized and the mormons demonized? maybe because i'm not religious i see all of them as wackos, but there was not much difference between the two sides to me. the settler asks his pastor what should they do when running out of supplies and the pastor leads a group incantation of the funeral psalm. yeah, cause that's inspiring and not incredibly morbid. and the mormons explain themselves over and over and over again, in logic that convinced christians to kill other christians many many times for centuries. clearly the writers put in the effort to humanize the mormon side, even if they were not critical of the settler's side. true, the film would probably have made its point better if both sides were seen as devilish or you saw some real trouble from voight's character, or maybe even if they went south park on it and made it a dark comedy, but the notion these critics put out that there is some cartoonish, infantile dramatic caricature going on here is ridiculous. i really feel the critical reviews for this movie in particular were motivated by an estimation of public opinion and not an objective assessment of the movie itself.

every time i have ever put up one of my scripts for review, the reviewer has always cited the godfather for at least half of their examples. that tells you something, and i mean something besides "so that's the only script they study."

de niro's performance is one of the top ten of all time. incredibly deep examination of a disturbed man who finally gives up the fight while bluffing incredible endurance. magnificent direction and cinematography fill the movie with lasting, powerful moments.