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Cold Mountain Customer Reviews (40 - 42 of 87 Reviews)

A Minghella mistake! A miscast Kidman!
I read the book in 1997 and was thrilled when I found out that Anthony Minghella would make the film. I thought he did a great job on "The English Patient." However, in that movie, he chose to go with Kirsten Scott Thomas to play the British aristocrat instead of using Demi Moore (!) as the studio wanted. Well, he should have done a similar thing for Cold Mountain which is an excellent book. Nicole Kidman is not convincing as the daughter of a North Carolina chaplain. She always has every hair in place and her forehead is botoxed up the kazoo. She looks older than Inman and even seems to overpower him at times. Natalie Portman, who plays a small role in the movie, would have been better as the lead. Don't even get me started on Renee Zellweger's granny imitation. How she won an Academy Award for that cariacature performance is beyond me. And then there is the scenery -- that was definitely NOT North Carolina! And then there is the grisly rewriting of the book which makes the Southern guys in the Home Guard look like the real bad guys. This movie was a mess and the audience I saw it with went home very deflated.

Crappity Crap!
First of all, I'd like to claim that I'm really a College student. I have recently seen "The Making of Cold Mountain", which my instructor decided to show all of us on the DVD in Digital Filming class today. Although I have not yet watched the movie in its entirety, there are plenty (& I do mean, PLENTY) of scenes used in numerous parts of the BTS footage. Many of them that did not look one bit in the least interesting, along with some of the worst cardboard dialogue I've ever seen in cinema history--followed by characters who you just cannot feel sorry for. (As a matter of fact, I wouldn't mind if they ALL had been killed off) In addition, the story seems way to cliched and stupid, considering the fact that much of it is too predictable and dry. Not even the interviews with the cast & crew can save this piece of trash! What's more, we have also been assigned to borrow or rent the movie and watch it in order to answer some questions on a quiz next week! I just cannot believe it! As much as I want to enjoy the film, I cannot because it just looks so damn BORING! God, I couldn't wait till the 'Making of...' featurette was finished! Personally, I'm so SICK of all these crappy modern-day western flicks with bad acting, crappy dialogue, and lack of character development. (Another example of a failure is "Gangs of New York". The creators/actors who made that film should've been shot) Now that I'm stuck having to sit through this entire dribble, I just don't know how long I will be able to manage until I fall asleep...

BOTTOM LINE: Probably will appeal more to girls who are into chick flicks, but will be a sleeping pill for the rest of us. If you want a good western, check out some of Clint Eastwood's movies or even John Wayne!

Make love not war.
Anthony Minghella both directed and wrote the screenplay for "Cold Mountain," the film version of Charles Frazier's Civil War epic. Jude Law plays Inman, a disillusioned Confederate soldier who goes off to war with a patriotic spirit, but is repelled by the brutality that he sees on the battlefield. After being wounded, he escapes the hospital to start his long journey back to Cold Mountain, North Carolina. Inman wants nothing more than to be with Ada, the woman who waits for him back home.

Anthony Minghella is most successful when he depicts the horrors of the Civil War. His opening sequences, which recreate a bloody confrontation between Confederate and Union soldiers, are mesmerizing and repellant at the same time. These scenes are almost balletic in the way that Minghella choreographs the explosions, the hand-to-hand combat, and the bodies flying over a corpse-ridden field.

However, Minghella is less successful when he flashes back to Cold Mountain and Ada. Nicole Kidman seems uncomfortable playing the prissy Southern belle, Ada Monroe, who is transplanted from Charleston to this rural setting when her father, nicely acted by Donald Sutherland, decides to set up his ministry there. Kidman is not very believable as this helpless and pampered lady who is shocked when reality smacks her in the face. Also artificial is Renee Zellweger, as Ruby Thewes, a tough-talking and self-reliant woman who helps the inept Ada tend her farm when she runs out of food. Zellweger chews up the scenery with her thick southern accent, her rolling eyes, and her broad gestures. In her case, less would have been more.

Jude Law is more subtle as Inman, a quiet man who is caught up in forces that he cannot control. His character is a bit like Odysseus returning from the war and facing a series of trials on his long journey home. The scenes of Inman's journey are extremely effective and are some of the best in the movie. I liked Natalie Portman, as a grieving Civil War widow with a sick baby, Eileen Atkins, as a crone who is a whiz with home remedies, and Philip Seymour Hoffman, as a hypocritical reverend who loves women more than prayer. Although Law is occasionally burdened with stilted dialogue, he does a credible job of conveying the feelings of a gentle man who wants nothing more then to live in peace with his lady love. The villains in "Cold Mountain" are far less subtle in their portrayal of evil incarnate. Ray Winstone is particularly vicious as Teague, a bully who rules Cold Mountain with an iron fist while the menfolk are away fighting the war.

The cinematography, by John Seale, is glorious. The film captures the wild beauty of North Carolina, with its scenes of snow swept mountains in the winter and verdant pastures in the spring and summer. Overall, the movie is uneven, but there a few moments of brilliance that make "Cold Mountain" worth visiting.

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