cinemajesty Film Review: "The Constant Gardener" (2005)Coming from his international smashing critical acclaim for "City of God" (2002), Director Fernando Meirelles and his cinematographer of trust Cesár Charlone turn to the royal discipline of novel adaptation with a script to "The Constant Gardener" written by Jeffrey Caine based on a novel by John Le Carré about a young couple from England moving to Kenya, Africa to expose a Global Player pharmaceutical company on testing pre-approved drugs on the inhabited population.The film's theme could not be more political inconvenient then exposing major incorporations going over corpses to make a profit. Director Fernando Meirelles stays in the realm of hand-held on-location coverage by throwing his two leading actors, portrayed by a timid to thoughtful Ralph Fiennes & forceful to speaking up loud Rachel Weisz as Justin & Tessa Quayle, in a township near Nairobi, where the character of Tessa catches fire to uncover the truth on business practices of the fictitious company "Three Bees", representing the opposite of activism in pitch-perfect driven plot to a balanced conclusion, which nevertheless misses a final thrill of change as "Blood Diamond" (2006) directed by Edward Zwick were able to provide with main character of Danny Archer, given face by Leonardo DiCaprio, fighting to the last breath.Director Fernando Mereilles shifts gears with Cinematographer Cesár Charlone to SteadiCam and Dolly Shots, when it comes to the London Sequence halfway through "The Constant Gardener", arguably the most satisfying scene of the film, where the character of Sir Bernard Pellegrin, performed by always understating actor Bill Nighy, commenting on the cocked fish tastes better then the grilled fish, playing down an open letter on Company practices to the Government, sending the character of Justin Quayle on a further odyssey, who desperately continues the work of his deceased wife, who wanted to change the world as men before her against all odds for personal satisfaction of a selfless act of courage of speaking up against injustice and exploitations, to no further inquires, leaving behind a blackmailed former friend of Justin's, portrayed by Danny Huston in the character of Sandy Woodrow, who reveals Tessa Quayle as the woman, who used another malpractice as the Global Player Corporation to shape the truth with offering sexual intercourse her husband best friend to receive the mind-blowing letter of revelation on a corrupted world view in an afterwards tension losing picture of not letting the characters collide on the fact of betrayal.What worked so astoundingly with "City of God" (2002) with wild chicken chase through urban landscape to an ultimate confrontation of beliefs, gets driving to an nowhere road of an again insufficient shot list with at times fully indecisive coverage that even veteran editor Claire Simpson could save "The Constant Gardener" from aging to an Cinema denying motion picture, yet still standing as a Political Thriller with fine acting and a voice screaming "Who cares?" after 12 years of believing to be the best – down from 10 out of 10 to 7 /10.© 2017 Felix Alexander Dausend (Cinemajesty Entertainments LLC)

SquigglyCrunch The Constant Gardener follows a man who, after his wife's death, begins to suspect that she was murdered. He goes digging, and ultimately gets into much more trouble than he'd expected. I absolutely loved this movie. I don't know why exactly, save for what I'm about to write about, but it was enthralling. I loved it. For starters, the acting. Ralph Fiennes is mesmerizing. His acting is subtle and full of depth, and how he got snubbed in the acting category of the Oscars is beyond me. This is the best performance I've ever seen from him. As for Rachel Weisz, she's great too. Her performance is less complex, but her character is interesting and a real treat to see on screen. Other performances, such as that of Pete Postlethwaite which weren't as important, are also great. Everyone who needed to be was great in this movie. The writing is probably the best part. The story is deep and engaging, and the dialogue is expertly written. The characters don't spoon feed the audience any information, not even subtly or little by little. You have to pay attention, and through that you can put together what's going on. You may put some things together later than you're supposed to, but that's because the characters speak to each other as if they're real people having a real discussion who don't need to re-explain stuff to each other, so there's no need for even the slightest bit of exposition. It's great to see the amount of respect the writers have for their audience with this movie. They respect us enough to use our brains and figure out what's going on. And to top it off, the directing is great. The shots are beautiful, and on occasion we get hand-held camera scenes from the perspective of the main character, which do a great job of capturing the tone of the film. However, the performances that weren't important were pretty mediocre. They were bearable, but distracting nevertheless. Despite all the praise, this is a very boring movie. I don't know how, if I was just tired at the time or what, but I was pretty close to nodding off for a lot of this movie. I ended up taking a couple breaks just to keep myself awake. Overall The Constant Gardener is great. While it was slow, I think that was more because of my own mood than anything. Otherwise the movie is extremely well performed, utterly enthralling in every aspect, and very well directed. I can't wait to see it again, and in the end I would definitely recommend this movie.

KissEnglishPasto ...........................................................from Pasto,Colombia...Via: L.A. CA., CALI, COLOMBIA.....and ORLANDO, FL The Constant Gardener shines with great intensity, but in a way that is rather subtle, somewhat occult, just beneath the surface. It's the kind of "Thriller" where more often than not, a silent expression or a nervous pause communicates more than a hundred words of dialog! Directed with panache, intrigue and passion in both scope and focus by Brazilian Fernando Meirelles (City of God), has created a tale of international dimensions.Based on the work of John le Carré, Gardener shows us the sinister side of pharmaceutical multinationals, where human life in Third World countries serves to supply perverse drug trials, in pursuit of even bigger record profits. Rachel Weisz (The Mummy, The Mummy Returns, Constantine) has been awarded a much-deserved Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress for her role as activist and wife. Also, Ms. Weisz most certainly deserved her Oscar win! The subtlety, complexity, originality and freshness of her portrayal are nothing short of amazing.Ralph Fiennes (The English Patient, Maid in Manhattan), despite giving one of the best performances of his life, curiously, did not even receive a Golden Globe nomination! Gardener demonstrates to us that often the reality of things is not what it seems at first glance. Justin Quayle (Fiennes) is a mid-level diplomat, who is tormented by persistent rumors and some strong indications of frequent infidelities by his activist wife.When she becomes the victim of a violent and gruesome murder, perhaps at the hands of her alleged African lover, Qualye senses something is askance and begins a methodical and patient investigation. To the extent that he gradually inches closer to the truth, threats and pressures to desist his inquiry increase exponentially! But as secrets of his late wife's life continue to be revealed, her image is vindicated completely; Mr. Quayle has become obsessed with arriving at the truth, regardless of the consequences. Also, Quayle, now quite repentant for having doubted his wife to the extent he did, now comes to realize that the most suitable place for him would have been beside the woman who loved him so much.Thusly, Gardener combines several diverse elements like suspense, political intrigue, romance, action, research and international outreach with masterful skill and powerful intensity....9*……ENJOY / DISFRUTELA! ]Any comments, questions or suggestions, in English o en Español are most welcome!......

Mmentzer1991 This honestly was a terrible movie I'm a big movie guy so I go to Salvation Army or Goodwill and buy movies buy the box load n what I like I keep and what I don't I return and this is definitely going back. It starts off with a teacher dating (n later marrying) one of his students and she's like a real big "left wing" liberal "save the people" type and they end up in Africa and she dies, but the story goes like backwards from before she dies and the whole time she's with this black African that I never could tell if she was "with", while she's married. I couldn't even sit and watch the whole movie the plot was Absolutely terrible, I shut it off half way through the only thing I give it is it's got the visual and audio techniques of a big budget film, but as far as the story goes; terrible. The cover of the DVD box way exaggerated the film. Save yourself the time.