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The Year of Living Dangerously Customer Reviews (13 - 15 of 26 Reviews)

Edited for TV
I loved the original theatrical release of The Year of Living Dangerously. I watched it over and over. It was a beautiful, sensuous film. This is not the original. This DVD was the work of some hack who left the best parts of the movie on the cutting room floor. Gone is much of the gamelan music, many scenic shots of Indonesian countryside, and one of the hotest make-out scenes in cinematic history. Just as Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver are about to go at it the scene abruptly ends. Even the sequence of the original is changed. The over all effect is a coursening of what had been a classic. This was such a dark and murky print I still wonder if I somehow got a bootleg copy surreptitiously videotaped by some artless thug. I feel angry and cheated.
I recommend waiting until the original version is released. DON'T BUY THIS TRASH!

Always on my top ten list of great films.
My standard of excellence for films includes whether or not it can hold up over the years. This came out in '82 and viewing it again is as fresh a pleasure as when Year of Living Dangerously first came out. I always list it on my top ten films of all times.

The cast is superb: not only do you get a sold performance from Mel Gibson as Guy, a journalist, but Sigourney Weaver does a great job as a diplomatic attache and possible spook. The real treat was Linda Hunt, as Billy, a photographer and idealist who pins his hopes on Guy (Gibson) as a friend who can grasp the deeper, human issues in Indonesia and not just skim the surface as another Western journalist, trying to make his mark reporting on an unstable political scene.

Linda Hunt's performance as a man was so believable and superb, she won an Academy award. The film (made in the Phillipines) is not only a good view into the politics of Southeast Asia, but is a great story about a young man getting a baptism by fire as a naive journalist. If you haven't seen it, you are in for a real treat.

Beautiful and Exotic Film That is Well Acted and Directed!
This is one of those rare films that is difficult to categorize. It could easily be mistaken for a political thriller but it is not, it could have worked as a romance but Weir went for the big picture. So it is basically a political drama that is very heavy on mood and atmosphere. Peter Weir and Mel Gibson had successfully teamed up two years earlier with 'Gallipoli' and created one of the most powerful war films of all time. They re-teamed with this film creating a lesser film than 'Gallipoli' but still a very worthy effort. The film is very heavy on political issues but it doesn't really matter if you're informed on the subject. Linda Hunt stunned almost everybody when in 1983 she was nominated in the 'best supporting actress' category for the Oscars. This was because he played a man in the film so convincingly that nobody even noticed. But upon repeated viewings one begins to notice the femininity in her character. But still she delivered a mesmerizing performance, the best gender-switching performance since Jack Lemmon in 'Some Like It Hot'. Peter Weir is a very unique and talented director and he is an expert when it comes to expressing mood as we would see two years later with his American debut 'Witness' the critically acclaimed Harrison Ford vehicle that put him in the spotlight. But this film is one of the most intoxicatingly exotic movies ever filmed. Mel Gibson is excellent as an Australian correspondent who is thrown into the turmoil of political upheaval in Indonesia. Sigourney Weaver exudes much needed sex appeal, but her character was underdeveloped and her performance was unfocused. Some of the scenes linger in the mind long after the first viewing. A fascinating exotic drama that succeeds on many levels. From a scale of 1-10 I give this film an 8!

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