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The Vow

A saccharine and paint-by-numbers slice of romance, which is largely boosted by the appeal of its two leads.

Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace (3D)

The under-utilised 3D adds little to this prequel, which only serves as a sore reminder of the brilliance of the original films.

Any Questions For Ben?

The talented bunch of actors ably cut through the surface gloss, but it’s tough to remain invested in the plight of the self-absorbed lead.

Shame

It starts off as brutal but arresting stuff, and the two lead performances are scorching, but disappointingly dissolves into a case of tragedy for the sake of tragedy.

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Farewell (Film)

by Mark Demetrius | June 28, 2010 14:59 | Edited June 28, 2010 15:01

Although it feels slightly generic at times, this reasonably entertaining thriller is made all the more intriguing due to the fact that it is inspired by real events.

As stories go, this one seems pretty tall, except that most of it actually happened. In 1981, a single individual passed on to the West a massive amount of crucial information about the identities of Soviet spies and their knowledge of Western research, bringing the eventual collapse of The Soviet Union a tad closer in the process. That individual was a KGB colonel named Vladimir Vetrov, who is called Gregoriev here, and is played by the renowned film director Emir Kusturica (Time Of The Gypsies, Underground, Black Cat White Cat). The decidedly uncomfortable conduit for the info is a young French engineer called Pierre, who is, coincidentally enough, played by another director, Guillaume Canet (Tell No One). The "relationship" between Gregoriev and Pierre is the cornerstone of the drama, and what we see of their respective private lives feels somewhat tacked on.

 

There's an air of guile about the serpentine CIA honcho, Feeney (Willem Dafoe), but for a saga of Cold War subterfuge, Farewell often seems simplistic, and the methods of operatives on both sides sometimes look more asinine than labyrinthine. Without giving anything away, suffice it to say that this is not a fault of the film itself. Similarly, the conduct and conversation of President Ronald Reagan (Fred Ward) - prattling on obsessively about Hollywood westerns - seems caricatured and cartoonish; then one remembers that Reagan was a real life caricature.  
     

Farewell has its moments, and it gets a great deal better as it goes on. The settings, mainly Paris and Moscow, are seductive, and the whole affair is resonantly atmospheric, even though the cinematography looks rather cheap. In its own generic terms, this is an entertaining thriller - and all the more intriguing for being loosely based on real events.