![]() Jeremy Irvine ( War Horse) also gives it his all as the young Eric. Still, his portrayal of PTSD will resonate with anyone touched by war and its fallout. The actor does everything that’s required of him, and yet Eric remains an emotionally remote protagonist for such a harrowing story. But with all its busy back-and-forth at the expense of compelling psychological insight, the lumbering script and direction fail to give the outcome the power it deserves.įirth holds nothing back in his painful depiction of stiff-upper-lip moral fiber at war against mental instability and festering hatred. That discovery yields more interesting developments, with strong work from Hiroyuki Sanada as the older Nagase in the inevitable confrontations. The dramatic turning point from past back to present comes when Finlay learns that Nagase somehow escaped death as a war criminal and is conducting guided tours of the Kempeitai internment camp where they were held. But when the radio was discovered, he was subjected to inhuman treatment - vicious beatings, interrogation and torture. He used pilfered parts to build a secret radio receiver, spreading hope among the men with news of far-away victories by the British and American forces. Spared from the backbreaking labor that resulted in the death of thousands of soldiers, Eric, Finlay and their engineering unit were forced to put their skills to work at the service of the Japanese. Knowing little more than the basics of their capture when Japanese forces occupied Singapore, Patti learns that they were sent to the jungles of Thailand to work on what was then known as the Burma-Siam railway. #The railway man code#This prompts her to approach another former P.O.W., Finlay ( Stellan Skarsgard), who reluctantly breaks their code of silence. But Eric’s nightmares return immediately after the wedding, ushering in the specter of Nagase ( Tanroh Ishida), the young Imperial Japanese Army officer who tortured him during World War II.Īll that fussy time-jumping seems an untidy way into Lomax’s remarkable saga of suffering, honor, reconciliation and forgiveness, robbing the story of dramatic urgencyĮric’s erratic behavior and inability to talk about the ordeal puts a heavy burden on his marriage to Patti. With no further ado, that woman, Patti (Kidman), becomes his wife. A lifelong railway enthusiast, Eric tells his cronies of a recent encounter on a train with a woman so sweet and unguarded that he fell instantly in love. ![]() From there, the action shifts back roughly three decades to 1980 in a veterans club in Berwick-upon-Tweed. Instead the film begins as Eric (Firth), with his dying breath, recites a poem that never really acquires much significance. That detail is related as a coda here, whereas it might have made for a more inventive starting point. 2012) finally found peace with his demons. The most striking aspect of Lomax’s story is the unexpected friendship that developed after the late war veteran (he died at age 93 in Oct. Dropping in references to Brief Encounter and The Bridge on the River Kwai merely underlines how far short they fall of their classic models.Īmazon Prime Video to Co-Premiere Season 5 of MGM-Distributed 'The Handmaid's Tale' in U.K. Screenwriters Frank Cottrell Boyce and Andy Paterson bring more timid reverence than inspiration to their adaptation of former British Army officer Eric Lomax’s memoir. superficially recalls Bruce Beresford’s Paradise Road in its setting against the backdrop of the fall of Singapore in 1942. But despite those deluxe elements, it never quite transcends its stodgy approach.ĭirected by Jonathan Teplitzky ( Burning Man), the co-production from Australia and the U.K. The film boasts committed work from Colin Firth as a British train enthusiast profoundly damaged by his experience as a prisoner of war, along with tearful support from Nicole Kidman as his wife. ![]() An old-fashioned war drama stuffed into a cumbersomely choppy time structure, The Railway Man is well-acted and handsomely produced, but its honorable intentions are not matched by sustained emotional impact or psychological suspense. ![]()
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