A political thriller, in many ways mirroring what is happening in the real world (or should), but somehow sombre and to an extent, old-fashioned. Unusually, this movie would make more impact if it were made, say, 3 years ago, but somehow it feels that it combines bits and pieces from other movies, used the U.N. headquarters as a centerpiece on the stage, and kind of just let everything pour out on the floor.
It's not that the story, dialogue and structure is bad, but the glaring mistake of this movie was to put two top-notch character actors like Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn in this movie, where the characters could easily be replaced by anybody else. The characters gained depth from the story, not the characters giving depth to the story. We do not know more about the characters other than what we are given on the screen, and we are not compelled to think of it anyway. The sophistication of the movie is there, but somehow we'd feel that we've seen it all before, so hence for a thriller, it doesn't give much of a thrill.
On the other hand, as a reminder of the sign of the times, the movie is mundanely notable.
It's not that the story, dialogue and structure is bad, but the glaring mistake of this movie was to put two top-notch character actors like Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn in this movie, where the characters could easily be replaced by anybody else. The characters gained depth from the story, not the characters giving depth to the story. We do not know more about the characters other than what we are given on the screen, and we are not compelled to think of it anyway. The sophistication of the movie is there, but somehow we'd feel that we've seen it all before, so hence for a thriller, it doesn't give much of a thrill.
On the other hand, as a reminder of the sign of the times, the movie is mundanely notable.
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