Brokeback Mountain Movie (2005) All Critics (234) | Top Critics (48) | Fresh (203) | Rotten (31) | DVD (38) Like all great love stories, Ang Lee's is one of tragic romance, strongly acted by Heath Ledger as the most buttoned-up of cowboys, and Michelle Williams as his betrayed and enraged wife. Ang Lee continues to astonish. January 9, 2006 Both [Gyllenhaal and Ledger] embody what that old Waylon and Willie song taught us -- 'Cowboys ain't easy to love, and they're harder to hold.' Lee has taken a story of gay love and placed it where it should be -- in the mainstream.
He's delivered a beautifully crafted film to boot. A sweeping, solemn, self-serious chronicle of their relationship over several decades. It stays with you after you've seen it, like a haunting strain of music; both love song and elegy for what might have been. An important and original romance that really and finally portrays the homosexual romance as two humans falling in love and never plays it for clichés... September 22, 2006. Heath Ledger. We Were Soldiers (2002) All Critics (167) | Top Critics (45) | Fresh (90) | Rotten (53) | DVD (29) Probably the best thing you can say about We Were Soldiers is that it does justice to an awful conflict.
The Vietnam setting looks authentic enough, but the action is as inert and unpersuasive as Gibson's attempt to fashion Bill Mauldin poetry out of his $20-million-plus smirk. Makes you cry for the hundreds of thousands of men and women who died so pointlessly with Geoghegan. And their orphans. As I settled into my World War II memories, I found myself strangely moved by even the corniest and most hackneyed contrivances.
After suffering through We Were Soldiers, I think I've seen all the war movies I care to endure for quite some time. March 13, 2002 One of the most violent movies ever released. I was impressed by Wallace's emphasis of Moore's faith, but the violence struck me as excessive, taking valuable time that could have been used to develop characters. ... July 25, 2003 December 19, 2002 June 28, 2002 June 5, 2002. Mel Gibson. The Patriot (2000) All Critics (153) | Top Critics (34) | Fresh (82) | Rotten (51) | DVD (37) Emmerich's battle scenes may look authentic to anyone who has ever stared hard at a history book, but in every other way the film is long, empty and bogus.
Make no mistake about it: The Patriot is a cartoon, even if it does have real people playing the parts. A grand yarn with a sense of the weight of history and an awareness that the winners are often those who have lost the most. Deserves a salute as the first Hollywood epic about the American Revolution to successfully blend ferocity and feeling. May 10, 2001 A movie of cornball sentiment, humorously anachronistic dialogue, and expensive Colonial Williamsburg sets. I enjoyed the strength and conviction of Gibson's performance, the sweep of the battle scenes, and the absurdity of the British caricatures. Many graphic battle scenes, not for all teens. While his hero is conscience-stricken about killing, Emmerich sure enjoys serving it up in generous helpings. Heath Ledger. Chris Cooper. Mel Gibson.