Cold Mountain

One half star
Nicole Kidman, Jude Law, Rene Zellwieger

This movie was not only a dissapointment, it was revolting. I held out hope that it would be a moving drama, but move is the last thing this film was going to do.

Cold Mountain is above all else tedious. It's only a little more than two hours but drags at such a pace that I was sure I had taken in at least three hours of movie watching. I admire Jude Law but find him very miscast in Cold Mountain, and Nicole Kidman and Rene Zelwieger had no business trying to pull off ladies of the South either.

After examining every minute detail of the travails of life in Civil War torn confederate states, we are exposed to images of depravity and disgust that do a disservice to the goal they were created for: illuminating the dark unknown problems of the Civil War. Instead of opening my eyes a la Private Ryan, I felt assaulted by images of female anatomy, extreme torture, rape, farm filth and pestilace.

I would usually say that the best way to end a drama is in tragedy, but after watching two hours of a depressing downer of a movie, I was floored by the tragic conclusion of the drawn out antcipation that we follow ad nasuium through the entire film. The few moments of worthwhile humor or pleasantires are drown in the muck of a cluttered plot and the miriad of other downfalls I have innumerated here. I would recomend this film to no one!