Reviews

Catch a Fire is surprisingly powerful and emotional. This emotion is assisted by a very moving soundtrack of South African music. The emotion is also feed by a brutal force of "anti-terrorists", with some of their interrogation techniques being very hard to watch for a PG-13 rated film. Though most violence is implied the film still does a very good job of portraying the brutality of the treatment that suspected terrorists in South Africa received. This film also does a great job of showing the terrorists side of the fight and offers insight into their motivation. The film focuses on people and their motivations and anyone can identify with almost every character. Despite being based on a true story and being a fairly realistic portrayal of the actual events, this film somehow manages to have enough action and suspense to have a fairly high entertainment value. A must see for anyone who enjoys historical films or drama/thrillers. 9/10

Flags of Our Fathers is excellent without being very entertaining. The movie itself is well filmed and contained some exceptional performances by many of the actors - Especially Adam Beach's portrayal of Ira Hayes. The score is rather dull though, with little music (most scenes were silent - yes it serves a purpose) except for one tune that seems to be in almost every emotional scene (the one from the trailer). The story does an okay job of following the book, but I felt the book was more entertaining than the film.

The movie is not meant to be another Saving Private Ryan and it is not. While Saving Private Ryan has the missions of the war as the main plot points - Flags of Our Fathers has the post war stories and shows how war affects people. I don't think Flags of Our Fathers is meant to be an entertaining movie. It makes you think and it shows the true nature of war in the Pacific. To the upset of people who like war films with an emphasis on the battle - objectives taken - battle plans - ex. Band of Brothers or Saving Private Ryan (I am one of those fans) - this film has really no such scenes. The taking of Iwo Jima is shown in short flashbacks where most of the time you have no idea what is trying to be accomplished. So don't go expecting an entertaining adventure type war film. Flags of Our Fathers seems borderline documentary, and that is okay. I thought that for what it was, and after reading the book, it was a great film.

The Prestige was an incredibly deep and twisted film. The plot is fairly hard to follow and for I while I would think things like "is this the past or the present" but soon I realized that it didn't really matter what it was, because in the end everything comes together. The movie keeps you on the edge of your seat guessing, right up until the last seconds of the film. These last few seconds will make you say "Wow, I get it now" and you will realize that Innocent scenes earlier in the film have significant importance. The special effects are great and the acting is very well done. The movie draws many parallels with another recently released "magician" film - The Illusionist, but the action and intensity of The Prestige makes for a more exciting and enjoyable experience. A backstage view of how some magic tricks are done also adds to the enjoyment. Highly recommended, definitely worth the price of admission.