Ben-Chaplin Movie Reviews

Having read the novel "Washington Square" and seen the wonderful film adaption, "The Heiress", I was so dissapointed in this adaption. The acting leaves a lot to be desired. I feel that when something is good, you should leave it alone, and obviously the producers of this adaption haven't learned that. If you have read "Washington Square" or seen "The Heiress" I think you will dissapointed as well.

Jennifer Jason Leigh stars as Catherine Sloper,a clumsy,shy and innocent only daughter of Doctor Sloper(Albert Finney). Her mother died at her birth and her father doesn't seem to like Catherine much. Morris Townsend(Ben Chaplin)falls in love with her but he's not rich and her father starts to believe that Morris just wants to marry Catherine for her money. If she marries Morris her father will disinherit her. What will Catherine do?

The performances of Jennifer Jason Leigh and the handsome Ben Chaplin are fine. So is Albert Finney role as the strict father. The music of the movie is beautiful.

Though the ending was not what I expected,(I actually felt disappointed)I actually can say that I liked the movie(after I watched for the second time). If you like period movies, like me, you should take a look at Washington Square.

This film is worth watching for two things, mainly:

1. the acting

2. the music

Jennifer Jason Leigh embodies Catherine Sloper and gives us all she's got. I don't have words to express just how moving she is in this movie. Ben Chaplin doesn't disappoint either. He captures Morris's ambiguity and show us that Morris is capable of fine feelings, even if he is not strong enough to be a better man. Albert Finney is awesome. His cruelty plays off immensely well against Jennifer Jason Leigh's quiet growth in strength and self-awareness. Maggie Smith is both saddening and creepy. Terrific actress.

I loved this movie. I'd read the book before and loved it first. I find that the script doesn't do justice to James's intricate observations (it's virtually impossible) on society and human psyche, but, at the same time, whenever I think of Catherine Sloper and Morris Townsend from now on, I'll see Jennifer Jason Leigh and Ben Chaplin and feel moved all over again.

All I have to say about the music is that it's beautiful. Listen to "Tu Chiami Una Vita". It'll break your heart...in a good way.

I bought this film thinking that it was going to be a rom-com, plus I liked the picture of Nicole Kidman on the front cover. (Although, after seeing the photo at the top of this page, I prefer that one!) Reading the back of this gives you the idea that its a nice happy film, where true loves wins.

It's not.

The start of it is too fast. Within minutes, the two main characters are meeting. There's a few sex scenes, including Nicole Kidman being tied up (how cliched), and then it descends into utter madness. It fast becomes a dark, violent film, leaving you wondering if there were two scriptwriters working on this, with very different ideas of how the film should be. If it had stayed the same at the start, I would have given it a higher mark. Ben Chaplain's character just annoyed me, but I really liked Nicole Kidman in this. It's a different role than she would normally play.

There's one scene that will stick out in my mind for this film, and its a very tender scene. It's when Ben Chaplain & Nicole Kidman are lying together in bed, and she's asleep. It's so sweet when he brushes hair off her face, and just watches her sleep. Makes you go "awwwwww".

There's one good extra, which I also bought it for, and was very disappointed. Nicole Kidman & Robbie Williams did a duet of "Something Stupid" (and she showed Tom Cruise exactly what he was losing by divorcing her!), and the video to this was on the DVD. Unfortunately, they covered all the good bits with clips from the film. The original video had some very saucy scenes between Robbie & Nicole, leading people to speculate if they were having a fling. I was very disappointed not to see these.

I don't regret buying this film, or watching it. Despite losing its originality half way through, and for most of the duration of the film, it does pick up slightly towards the end, although it doesn't match up to the beginning.

Birthday Girl, while sporting a great performance by Nicole Kidman as a Russian mail order bride, suffers from not quite knowing what kind of film it wants to be.

The plot, complete with a few twists, explores a lonely British banker's attempt to find love via a mail order bride, and his turmoil when he gets in over his head in a scam. Kidman's performance is totally believable (of course I'm no Russian, so I don't have a real knowledgeable opinion on that), and the story starts out mildly entertaining. But as the plot thickens the movie at times seem like it wants to be original before beginning to rely on overused plot devices that belong in B-movie romances and thrillers. Unfortunately, Kidman's performance isn't enough to keep the movie entertaining and the film never really manages to rise above mediocrity.

Most annoying is the way this film starts out like a romantic comedy, becomes a thriller, and goes back to romantic comedy, to dark comedy and back to thriller. It doesn't really blend them together into a cohesive form. You can combine all these genres into a good film, but Birthday Girl can't quite juggle them without dropping the ball.

The critics were right about Kidman's performance, but the reason why they focused on her and didn't comment much on the rest of the movie is clear when you watch it. It's not a bad movie, just not one to get excited about.

THis is a beautifully crafted film! A fantastic and thrilling narrative that defies conventional categories. The writer/director tends to call it the movie a "sex-comedy", but that does an injustice to the wonderful element of tension and suspense this film carries with it. Ben Chaplin plays a dillignet but boerd bank employee living in the British countryside. Chaplin's character John sends away for a charming, well educated Russian Bride and ends up with a chain smoking woman that doesn't speak a word of English.

I honestly didn't realize how obscenely talented and dedicated Nicole Kidman is as an actor. The Screenwriting is also superb. Every element of the storyline fell beutifully into place at just the right moments. The movie has a great romantic storyline that doesn't make the mistake of trying too hard to actually be romantic.

Aslo, I was rather impressed after finding out that the actors that played Alexi and Yuri were both Frenchmen -- they pulled of the Russian convincingly and effortlessly. IN fact all of the performances, including Nicole Kidman's come off stunningly, without the slightest stench of pretense or effort.

Perhaps I'm simply an uncultured Philistine, but I found this movie to be painfully slow, disjointed, and excessively philosophical. The plot lacked flow: episodes largely failed to join themselves together in time and space and an often-heard comment from me while viewing this was "When the heck is this?" Perhaps this disjunction was an effort to portray the reality of fighting in the Pacific War, as has been mentioned- long periods of agonizing boredom punctuated by brief periods of intense conflict and sheer terror- but if so it failed to come across that way, although I was surely frustrated and bored during most of the movie, and thus some would say the director has achieved his aims. The action scenes, what few there were, were well-done and satisfying and did capture the nature of conflict but were hardly worth watching the entire movie for.

The acting was generally sub-par. Nick Nolte really overplayed his part, coming across as ridiculous and unrealistic; his inner monologue and outward actions were completely disconnected, leaving me to wonder just exactly what his problem was. Most of the rest of the actors failed to impress me with their skills, and I sympathized with a grand total of one character, Ben Chaplin's Bell. He was well-played and I was engaged by the saga of his wife, as I was curious to see how it turned out and since it brought some semblance of plot and interest to the movie.

A great deal of philosophizing and thinking went on before the viewer sees the characters go through anything worth philosophizing about. After they have been through combat, it only gets worse, ascending to new depths of turgid dialogue/monologue about war and ... the horror of it all. I found the manner in which this was done unsatisfying and unrealistic.

I have seen other movies and read many works of history that portray and describe very well what can happen to men in wartime: this film does neither and is a realistic depiction only in the sense that the viewer will soon wish it to be over, as combatants wish a war to be over.

It is my belief that one day film historians will look back at the 1990s and realize that The Thin Red Line, an overall superior work compared to Saving Private Ryan, was done an injustice due to the latter's superior marketing techniques as well as director Steven Spielberg's household name recognition. While Private Ryan did a good job at depicting the horrors of war and the honor of the individual soldier, The Thin Red Line gives us the psychological aspects of war, which is a far more complex and intriguing world then the one presented to us by Spielberg. This film is longer and less "hollywoodized" than Ryan, but it has just as many gripping battle scenes and a star all-male cast that arguably makes the performances in Private Ryan pale by comparison. And while the latter work gave us the titanic, war-torn towns in France, this one gives us a glimpse into the colorful, exotic world of the Asia-Pacific region. To sum things up, this film is a masterpiece for an audience that appreciates war films that are realistic yet also introspective, delving into the the eternal issue of life and the meaning that human beings give to it.

First off, this is NOT, let me write it again, NOT like Saving Private Ryan. The biggest injustice for this movie was that some knuckleheads had the audacity to compare it to Saving Private Ryan. While Ryan focuses on the honor and sacrifice of the average soldier in WW2, Red Line does just the opposite, choosing more to focus on the bitterness and pure lack of emotions that many soldiers faced.

In this film, we are introduced to a group of men who are as diverse and differing as one could dream up. There is a dreamer(play by Jim Caviezel) who chooses to see the good in all, a over-ambitious major(Nick Nolte), a compassionate captain(Elias Koteas), and many others who embody fear, reluctance, cowardess, love, isolation, synicism, and total lack of hope, among other things.

Many have said that the film is not a true portrayal of war, focusing mainly on Caviezel's character and using his dream-like attributes as ammo for their ridicule of the film. Let me say this: HE IS THE ONLY CHARACTER LIKE THAT!! All the others are just as normal as you and I and who's to say that people like Witt do not exist, even in times of war. To me, he embodies a Christ-like figure who even put's himself in the shoes of one of the dead Japanese soldiers at one point. When people blast this film, I immediately know they are skeptics who are probably negative and who harshly judge the world they live in. Maybe that's the point of the film too: that this world has beauty but man, left to himself, will eventually destroy it all, even turn on each other. If you have never watched this film, please don't compare it to other war films. This movie will not make you cry; it will, however, make you think if you allow it to.

On a parting note, I am fascinated by a scene where a young boy dies in the arms of his commanding officer. I never cried in the scene, and maybe that's what Malick(the director) wanted. To not cry is to feel like many soldiers did in the past few wars. Most of them lost the ability to feel and to cry during the war. This movie is a great film but will never get the praise it deserves because of people who compare it to Saving Private Ryan. If you have an open mind and don't have to have everything explained to when you watch a film, this might be for you. If you get your kicks from films that force you to cry, try Saving Private Ryan.

There's something frustrating about watching a movie like 'Murder By Numers' because somewhere inside that Hollywood formula is a good movie trying to pop out. However, by the time the credits roll, there's no saving it. The whole thing is pretty much blown by the "cop side" of the story, where Sandra Bullock and Ben Chaplin's homicide detective characters muddle through an awkward sexual affair that becomes more and more trivialized the longer the movie goes on. Although Bullock is strong in her role, it's not enough to save the lackluster script and lazy pacing. Ben Chaplin's talents are wasted in a forgettable role (he did much better earlier in the year in the underrated 'Birthday Girl') as well as Chris Penn, who has a role so thanklessly small you feel sorry for a talent like him. Anyway, the plot really isn't even a factor in this movie at all. The two teen killers played by Ryan Gosling and Michael Pitt are the only real reasons to see this movie. Their talent and chemistry work pretty good and they play off of each other quite well. It's too bad they weren't in a much better all-around film. Barbet Schroeder is treading way too safe ground here for such a seasoned filmmaker. Bottom Line: it's worth a rent if you're a genre fan, but everyone else will live a fulfilled life without ever seeing it, except maybe on network TV with convenient commercial breaks.

I tend to shy away from movies, but the acting performances here, along with the plot itself, changed my mind! Sandra Bullock does an excellent job portraying an out-of-character damaged detective. She and her partner spar throughout the film, all which creates exchanges of acting genius.

The overly psychological aspects of the film are what make it such an excellent presentation. From two suburban boys of varying personalities, to investigators in the same predicament, Murder by Numbers is chillingly entrancing. It offers an escape to a sinister world of corruption, greed, and selfishness, with bits of action intertwined. The movie will keep you awake, and you'll be grateful, for you'll be able to pick out the many hidden nuances peppered through-out the two hours.

First off, this is one of the few movies in which all the characters are acted out to perfection. Ryan Gosling and Michael Pitt play manipulator and victim, respectively. Gosling is so good in this movie, you are disturbed yet awed by the fact that an innocent-looking guy like Gosling can entice, humiliate, and commit someone to murder. This movie is so psychological; there are many different nuances that are so fun to pick out. You can be repulsed by what the boys have done, and by the scenes that show their violence, but you can't help getting drawn into their world and feeling sorry for at least Michael Pitt's character when they face the consequences of their actions.

As for Sandra Bullock's portrayl of emotionally damaged Cassie Mayweather - I thought she did an excellent job. Sandra is America's Sweetheart, and yet she plays Cassie so perfectly - with her subtle humor and aggressive personality. One of the reasons the movie is so well done is because it can at once make you chuckle, cringe, gasp, or cheer, and make you feel a thousand other emotions you won't be able to put your finger on. The people who gave this movie bad reviews did not look into the movie deep enough, and could not appreciate the psychological elements that give the movie its power. The only complaint I can make is that there are not enough extras. I was hoping for at least deleted scenes, but no. Oh well, this review is for the movie only anyway.

There's something frustrating about watching a movie like 'Murder By Numers' because somewhere inside that Hollywood formula is a good movie trying to pop out. However, by the time the credits roll, there's no saving it. The whole thing is pretty much blown by the "cop side" of the story, where Sandra Bullock and Ben Chaplin's homicide detective characters muddle through an awkward sexual affair that becomes more and more trivialized the longer the movie goes on. Although Bullock is strong in her role, it's not enough to save the lackluster script and lazy pacing. Ben Chaplin's talents are wasted in a forgettable role (he did much better earlier in the year in the underrated 'Birthday Girl') as well as Chris Penn, who has a role so thanklessly small you feel sorry for a talent like him. Anyway, the plot really isn't even a factor in this movie at all. The two teen killers played by Ryan Gosling and Michael Pitt are the only real reasons to see this movie. Their talent and chemistry work pretty good and they play off of each other quite well. It's too bad they weren't in a much better all-around film. Barbet Schroeder is treading way too safe ground here for such a seasoned filmmaker. Bottom Line: it's worth a rent if you're a genre fan, but everyone else will live a fulfilled life without ever seeing it, except maybe on network TV with convenient commercial breaks.

I tend to shy away from movies, but the acting performances here, along with the plot itself, changed my mind! Sandra Bullock does an excellent job portraying an out-of-character damaged detective. She and her partner spar throughout the film, all which creates exchanges of acting genius.

The overly psychological aspects of the film are what make it such an excellent presentation. From two suburban boys of varying personalities, to investigators in the same predicament, Murder by Numbers is chillingly entrancing. It offers an escape to a sinister world of corruption, greed, and selfishness, with bits of action intertwined. The movie will keep you awake, and you'll be grateful, for you'll be able to pick out the many hidden nuances peppered through-out the two hours.

First off, this is one of the few movies in which all the characters are acted out to perfection. Ryan Gosling and Michael Pitt play manipulator and victim, respectively. Gosling is so good in this movie, you are disturbed yet awed by the fact that an innocent-looking guy like Gosling can entice, humiliate, and commit someone to murder. This movie is so psychological; there are many different nuances that are so fun to pick out. You can be repulsed by what the boys have done, and by the scenes that show their violence, but you can't help getting drawn into their world and feeling sorry for at least Michael Pitt's character when they face the consequences of their actions.

As for Sandra Bullock's portrayl of emotionally damaged Cassie Mayweather - I thought she did an excellent job. Sandra is America's Sweetheart, and yet she plays Cassie so perfectly - with her subtle humor and aggressive personality. One of the reasons the movie is so well done is because it can at once make you chuckle, cringe, gasp, or cheer, and make you feel a thousand other emotions you won't be able to put your finger on. The people who gave this movie bad reviews did not look into the movie deep enough, and could not appreciate the psychological elements that give the movie its power. The only complaint I can make is that there are not enough extras. I was hoping for at least deleted scenes, but no. Oh well, this review is for the movie only anyway.

I thought that this collection was very good. It really amazes you to watch some of his work from the silent film era. Because back then it was all about how good your facial & body expressions were. While nowadays people are more concerned with their voice.So i must give great credit to CHarles Chaplin for doing what he did so greatly in the silent film era.

The real star of Lost Souls isn't Winona Ryder or Ben Chaplin or John Hurt, but the art direction and cinematography of Janusz Kaminski. As the movie progresses, the direction becomes less self-conscious, but the first half of the film seemed to me almost painfully artistic, filled with odd camera angles from the ground up, haze and cigarette smoke and distorting glass, slow-motion and other tricks, and a sepia-tinted color world. An artistic vision as the basis of a film can be a very good thing--personally I loved The Cell, which was similarly style oriented--but Lost Souls brought nothing new to the table, even stylistically. Others have pointed out the obvious plot similarities to The Exorcist (I was also reminded of The Omen). The "improvements" almost thirty years later lie principly in the fact that this film contains two (well, two and a half) exorcisms, not just one. No significantly better special effects, no more insight into the ritual, or possession, or the characters or why Satan might pick particular people. My biggest disappointment was with the character Maya Larkin, played rather well by Winona Ryder. Larkin has supposedly been saved from a possession herself, but we saw only the briefest flashback from this event (thus the "half exorcism" I mentioned earlier. There is almost no follow-through at all on what this has meant to her life and how it has effected her personality. Yes, she still works with her exorcist, lives in a nunnery, and teaches in a Catholic school, but for heaven's sake (!), you'd think having a demon in possession of your body and being forceably cast out through the intervention of Jesus Christ and his saints might leave a mark on a person, at least psychologically. I guess all those sessions at Exorcees Anonymous really did the trick for her.

There were a few good scenes--in particular I liked the scene in which the pentagram is discovered. But overall, this one is a renter at best. It had the potential to be a terrific film, but unfortunately style didn't prevail over substance.

Solid performances from Ben Chaplin and Winona Ryder make this a creepy and thoroughly engaging film. The cinematography and music are appropriately haunting, although everything is quite understated (and all the more menacing). Until the climactic finale, the viewer is faced with the same doubt (of Chaplin's character) about whether the devil is an actual supernatural force or a manifestation of a disturbed psyche. The balancing act sets this film apart from the numerous horror films about the Antichrist. In this respect, "Lost Souls" has more in common with the darkness of films like "Seven" or the TV Series "Millenium", rather than conventional horror films like "The Excorcist". Highly recommended.

Quite simply the best film of all time. I have watched close to every film ever made and am the ultimate critic. Having watched every film every made again lately I was able to come to the conclusion that this is indeed the best film ever made.

The real star of Lost Souls isn't Winona Ryder or Ben Chaplin or John Hurt, but the art direction and cinematography of Janusz Kaminski. As the movie progresses, the direction becomes less self-conscious, but the first half of the film seemed to me almost painfully artistic, filled with odd camera angles from the ground up, haze and cigarette smoke and distorting glass, slow-motion and other tricks, and a sepia-tinted color world. An artistic vision as the basis of a film can be a very good thing--personally I loved The Cell, which was similarly style oriented--but Lost Souls brought nothing new to the table, even stylistically. Others have pointed out the obvious plot similarities to The Exorcist (I was also reminded of The Omen). The "improvements" almost thirty years later lie principly in the fact that this film contains two (well, two and a half) exorcisms, not just one. No significantly better special effects, no more insight into the ritual, or possession, or the characters or why Satan might pick particular people. My biggest disappointment was with the character Maya Larkin, played rather well by Winona Ryder. Larkin has supposedly been saved from a possession herself, but we saw only the briefest flashback from this event (thus the "half exorcism" I mentioned earlier. There is almost no follow-through at all on what this has meant to her life and how it has effected her personality. Yes, she still works with her exorcist, lives in a nunnery, and teaches in a Catholic school, but for heaven's sake (!), you'd think having a demon in possession of your body and being forceably cast out through the intervention of Jesus Christ and his saints might leave a mark on a person, at least psychologically. I guess all those sessions at Exorcees Anonymous really did the trick for her.

There were a few good scenes--in particular I liked the scene in which the pentagram is discovered. But overall, this one is a renter at best. It had the potential to be a terrific film, but unfortunately style didn't prevail over substance.

Solid performances from Ben Chaplin and Winona Ryder make this a creepy and thoroughly engaging film. The cinematography and music are appropriately haunting, although everything is quite understated (and all the more menacing). Until the climactic finale, the viewer is faced with the same doubt (of Chaplin's character) about whether the devil is an actual supernatural force or a manifestation of a disturbed psyche. The balancing act sets this film apart from the numerous horror films about the Antichrist. In this respect, "Lost Souls" has more in common with the darkness of films like "Seven" or the TV Series "Millenium", rather than conventional horror films like "The Excorcist". Highly recommended.

Quite simply the best film of all time. I have watched close to every film ever made and am the ultimate critic. Having watched every film every made again lately I was able to come to the conclusion that this is indeed the best film ever made.

There were some clips of the famous Silent Stars, but overall, I was very disappointed. Most of the footage was of unknown stars, with some producers and directors I've never heard of. Sure, you see some clips of Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Lillian and Dorothy Gish, but other than that, it was boring. This was not at all what I thought it was going to be. Save your money!!

What a great video, seeing stars and directors I have only heard of and not expecting to see on film in a way not usually seen. The film quality was fantastic. It was great to see Lillian and Dorothy Gish who I really love, and also Pearl White. Taken all round, well worth the money. I love it anyway.