Prisoners v Hart's War

Early in the week I took my buddy Neil to the local cineworld and caught Prisoners.

Plot summary 

Jake Gylenhaal proofs that not all people with neck tattoo's go shoplifting in Tesco's. Meanwhile Hugh Jackman's daughter gets abducted. Jackman tells his wife he has to help the police with the search, slips her a load of pills to sedate her, then goes out and gets shit-faced instead. What a hero!

I was very impressed with Jackman's innovative makeshift torture shower. That might make me sound like a sadist. However I'm sure all the carpenters out there would be paying attention to that scene and giving the secret nod of approval.
At the core of the film lies the message, is it moral to use torture as a device to extrapolate information that could be key in saving life's? Who knows, but it would be interesting to see if a patent is available for that torture shower.

Lastly, the writer of this film clearly couldn't be arsed to write a decent part for a woman. Jackman's wife is written out of the film altogether as she inexplicably decides to stay in bed and down shit loads of sleeping pills. It kind of gives you an indication of how good Rene Russo was in Ransom. Which I thought about alot whilst watching this, and for the majority of the time, wished I was watching instead.


Tomato Meter - 81% (critics)
Tomato Meter - 89% (audience)
Peter Meter - 78%

So during the week I caught Hart's War on the iPlayer

Plot Summary

Bruce Willis and Colin Farrell get put up by some quite pleasant Nazi's in a POW camp. 

Honestly these Nazi's aren't so bad in this. It's all quite amicable really until someone gets whacked and a kangaroo court is put together to find the perpetrator. At times it reminded me of A Few Good Men, and then it made me want to watch that instead. Other times it bore a close resemblance to The Great Escape, which due to the tone and backdrop was probably going to be unavoidable. So imagine The Great Escape fused at the hip with A Few Good Men, then imagine not really giving a fuck about anyone involved, and you have Hart's War.

I enjoyed the football bread scene though, so I included it here for your viewing pleasure.



















Tomato Meter - 60% (critics)
Tomato Meter - 53% (audience)
Peter Meter - 64%

Verdict

Lastly I got a got a reply from Alexei Sayle by email the other day. I posed the following question to him:

Q# Sean Connery has gone on record by saying that Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was the best film that he has ever been involved with, could you share those sentiments in regards to your own film career?

A# Well I only had one scene in Indy 3 which I enjoyed and it is a great movie.  I think the best films I've made are for TV and I would say that The Comic Strip film "The Strike" is the best performance I've given in a movie.

I haven't seen Strike myself so unfortunately i can't recommend it. However I have seen A Few Good Men and have included a wonderful clip of Jack delivering a cracking line about blow jobs. So WATCH Jack Nicholson talk about blow jobs and NOT Prisoners OR Hart's War.