The Year of Living Dangerously
Director: Peter Weir
Year Released: 1983
Rating: 2.0
Two adjectives that accurately describe this Peter Weir film are 'sweaty' and 'smelly.' I guess that's a compliment of sorts: it means that Weir and his cinematographer have accurately captured the air-conditionless atmosphere of Indochina back in the '30s where the story supposedly takes place. What I can't compliment it on is its inability to make us concerned over what transpires - frankly, I could care less about what happens to the poor people in this film dying because of their Communist leader's cruelty towards them. The Oliver Stone film "Salvador" suffered from the same problem. The war in each of these films holds no bearing on us as Americans, and so no direct threat is being pointed in our direction. In the acting category, Mel Gibson, Sigourney Weaver and Linda Hunt (playing a man and doing a great job) do fine with their roles, although the Gibson/Weaver love affair seems to be simply a plot device and never materializes into much.
