Rather flaccid and loose limbed historical epic that refuses to be either a traditional epic or even much of a conventional biopic. This is understandable given that the movie is about a radical and a revolutionary who, like the film's director, screenwriter and star, is himself concerned with leftwing politics. Shooting in 35- rather than super 35mm allows the central characters' tempestuous love affair to seem not so grandiose despite being set against revolutionary times. This prevents the times from getting in the way of the human drama.
The biographical aspect of the picture is divided between dramatized scenes from the lives of those concerned, interspersed with filmed recollections from people - there at the time – who actually knew the principals. These weather-beaten faces actually begin the movie and successfully lead us into the drama documentary that will unfold over the next 3 plus hours.
However, the film is really too long to sustain what is a really an intimate tale of a love affair hampered by the radical politics of the people involved. They just could not decide what was most important to them: The so called historical logic and inevitability of dialectical materialism - or their love lives. This leads them to the ideological correctness of assuming sexual fidelity was a bourgeois conceit rather than a loving necessity. Louise Bryant and John Reed are shown here as colleagues trying to be something more – lovers; leading to an on/off, free love affair.
Like all so called political intellectuals down the ages – including Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels – neither Bryant nor Reed really understands the manual working man nor how they could ever possibly relate them to their own birth privileges. So they compensate by indulging in a bourgeois fantasy of a workers' revolution led by themselves that does not really involve the workers that much.
Warren Beatty is not much of an actor and cannot bring his character to life. He sensibly, therefore, leaves the acting honors to those much better actors with which he surrounds himself – particularly Diane KEATON and Jack NICHOLSON. By their responses to his character, we gain an insight into the man John Reed was - as well as the man BEATTY thinks he was. In addition, the direction is rather unimaginative in a way that David LEAN would have found rather tiresome. BEATTY cannot find the right images for the story he wants to tell and this makes the movie look more like tv fare than a cinematic experience.
Copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.
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