Syriana (2005)

[Movie 56 / Day 34]


So many characters and so many location jumps (some subtitled, some not) meant I actually had difficulty following this. Maybe I just wasn't paying enough attention or wasn't in the right mood for something as heavy as this, but I just found it dull, dull, dull. Well acted, etc, just meh.

My rating: 5.0 / 10
IMDB rating: 7.1 / 10
Running time: 126 mins
IMDB link

The Kingdom (2007)

[Movie 49 / Day 30]


In a small compound in Saudi Arabia, a compound that's home to Americans working out there, terrorists attack and indiscriminately kill many.

Four FBI agents (Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, Chris Cooper and Jason Bateman) get permission to enter Saudi Arabia for 5 days in order to investigate. They form a friendship with the Saudi police captain that is assigned to babysit them and manage to track down one of the terrorist bases. Obviously, the terrorists don't like that so much and try and kill them all before kidnapping one of the agents with the intention of executing him on video... Much gunplay ensues.

Foxx is pretty good as the ice cold team leader, Garner is hot but a little too not-a-hair-out-of-place, Cooper is excellent as he is in most things and Bateman plays the sarcastic joker character pretty well. Special mention to Jeremy Piven who crops up as the guy from the US Embassy, cos he's ace.

It's a pretty good film, nothing overly special, but enjoyable nonetheless.

My rating: 7.5 / 10
IMDB rating: 7.2 / 10
Running time: 110 mins
IMDB link

Capote (2005)

[Movie 46 / Day 28]


Biopic about Truman Capote writing his book, In Cold Blood. Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Capote and does a damn good job of it - he's a brilliant actor and deserves more leading roles.

The problem is, I didn't really know much about Capote and the more I watched the film, the more I realised I don't really care. It plods along at a very slow pace - it felt much, much longer than 2 hours. They probably could have cut half an hour out without damaging the storyline by judicious use of "one year later" type subtitles.

I'm sure if you're a big fan of Capote and his book, you'd probably love this. I was just happy when the end credits rolled.

My rating: 5.0 / 10
IMDB rating: 7.6 / 10
Running time: 114 mins
IMDB link