Hey folks, Harry here with an astute listening spy of ours named Harry Caul... Caul has an ear for a great deal of things... and accents are one of them. He likes the movie, but loathes Cage's accent... of course this could all be fixed in ADR... unless of course, Mr Caul is over-reacting... we'll see this fall I suppose... Here ya go....
Hi Harry,
I saw a screening of "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" last night and thought I'd write to you about it. I liked it a lot more than I thought I would. The trailers make it look like a sappy romance, but there's actually a lot more to it than that. If you ever saw the Italian film, "Mediterraneo," this film has a very similar premise. It involves a group of Italian soldiers sent to occupy a small Greek island during World War II. While, "Mediterraneo" was mainly a comedy, this one is a little more serious. There is the sappy romance element, but the movie really picks up in the last hour with some very tense and violent war scenes.
The main problem with this movie is Nicolas Cage. I thought his academy award for "Leaving Las Vegas" was well deserved, but his performances since then seem to be going down hill. I have a real problem with his tendency to go over the top. Someone needs to take him aside and tell him to tone it down a little. In this movie, he plays an Italian soldier, and his accent is obviously fake. This is probably the worst accent I've heard in a movie in a long time, even worse than Kevin Costner in Robin Hood.
Over all, this movie is pretty good and I'd definitely recommend it. The romance is well done and war scenes in the second half play really well. Nicolas Cages accent, however, is a hard obstacle to overcome. Every time he speaks, it's like finger nails on chalk board and it pulls you out of the experience.
Sincerely,
Harry Caul
