Hey folks, Harry here, and I must warn you. If you are planning on seeing this movie, just know that you will get a gigantic spoiler down below. This Dr. Fu Manchu does not kid around. He's evil... He'll out and out suddenly spill the beans...(Soy of course)... But he didn't care for this movie much at all. But like I said... If you plan on seeing the film... DO NOT READ THIS! Here's Dr Fu Manchu...
I see that many of you have fallen under the spell of that half-blind henchman, Moriarty. This is understandable, he has excellent PR. Now I am going to pull back the curtain on his facade. You see, Moriarty claims to be evil, claims to enjoy torture. Yet where are his reviews of movies like THE BACHELOR or JAKOB THE LIAR. He's a soft Englishman growing cozy in his hideout. Scared to even leave his Labs, instead sending out clockwork mechanisms of himself. To prove my superiority, I will review yet another torturous nail-puller.
I saw a screening the other night. You know Hollywood is desperate for good scripts when it has to stoop so low as to do a remake of an Oscar Nominated film. What's this world coming to? "Jakob The Liar" (which opens Friday) is a remake of a 1974 foreign film that was nominated for best foreign language film in 1977 by director Frank Beyer. Vlastimil Brodsky won for best actor at the Berlin International Film Festival playing Jakob. The director, has won 3 awards since and has been directing films way back in 1954 and is still making movies. Now comes another remake, is Columbia that needy for an Oscar that they have to take this route? Not only that but Robin Williams produced this film. Okay, now on to the plot:
Warning BIG Spoilers!
This takes place during WWII in Poland, where it's extremely ice cold. Jakob (robin williams) is a cafe owner who with others are prisoners in a Nazi camp. Life is not beautiful here. One night as Jakob is walking around, he happens to come across a young girl, who just escaped a train ride going to put those aboard to death. Her parents got her off and now she is alone until she runs into Jakob. Jakob tells her where to go as the soldiers hear something. jakob gets arrested and brought to the General's office. You see there's a curfew at 8pm and no one's allowed outside.
While in the office, Jakob overhears on the radio that the Soviet military are having success over the German forces. After the General shuts off the radio and gives a scolding to Jakob, he returns to his cafe. He tells the girl that she can stay with him, but to stay hidden or she'll be gone. The next day during hangout time with the prisoners, Jakob tells his friends a lie about being saved. That the Soviets are coming close to their camp & that they are beating the Germans. This starts a chain reaction where you tell one person one thing and by the time it gets to the last person it's a whole different story.
Well that happens and now the rumor is that Jakob has a radio. In this camp if you get caught with a radio you get shot. So now when Jakob finds out that the rumor is going around he has to put a stop to it. That's one story, the other one is entertaining the young girl who is staying with him and keeping her a secret. Then there's another story of Mischa (liev schreiber), who wants to marry Frankfurter's (alan arkin) daughter (not Frankenfurter).
There's one too many stories going on in this 2 hour film to make it interesting. I read the Hollywood Reporter's review stating that this is better than Roberto Benigni's 'Life Is Beautiful'. I don't know how much glue they were sniffing during their screening, but there is no way in Hell that it's better. First off, 'Life Is Beautiful' is not a remake of anything (hint, hint), it's Original. Second, they are calling Jakob a comedy/drama, I didn't see anything funny in this film. All the jokes fall flat, if they were jokes.
Roberto Benigni brought a certain joy not found in that type of film, out. It was warm and happy and brought tears to one's eyes. Unlike the tears I had during Jakob, knowing I shot 2 hours of my time away watching this film.
SPOILER! - The confusing thing in this film is that it's alot like the ending of "Jacob's Ladder", where Tim Robbins is telling his story right as he's dying. In "Jakob The Liar", Jakob is shot in the head (point blank), but he's able to tell his story. How is that done? Was this all a fantasy? Maybe he's a superhero?
As far as the director's concerned, he should be blamed for this fiasco, Peter Kassovitz not only directed it but rewrote the story (originally from the novel by Jurek Becker). He did not write it alone let's throw in the Art Director of a French TV show "France 2", Didier Decoin.
If you want to see a real film that's fun and heartwarming than rent the Subtitled "Life Is Beautiful", at least it's not a god-awful remake.
So there you plump fool. Get out of your lab, see a film with your real eyes, not an NTSC transmission via stretched to a hair's breadth copper wire. Moriarty, I'm coming after you.
Dr. Fu Manchu
