theodorapilates Well maybe I should have watched this when it came out to be as impressed as most viewers here, but I was 6 so even if I did I don't remember it. But I do remember the hype about it. I only watched it in 2018 because so many people reviewing Angelina Jolie's First They Killed My Father kept insisting that this is THE movie to watch if you want to know more about the Cambodian genocide. And that Jolie's movie was uninformative and cheesy. Well, this one is equally uninformative and way more cheesy! Maybe reviewers preferred the story being told my a guy rather than a girl? I have no idea. At least FTKMF left me intrigued to find out more about the situation and I was also immersed in its atmosphere. I can't say the same for this one. It looked like a poor man's Empire of the Sun. Such important stories that need to be told, but it doesn't work every time just because of the shock value. Lastly, as few others already mentioned, this movie was in need of editing. Too long with little substance. Sorry!

Gareth Crook I didn't know much detail about the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia, the war through the 70-90s and to be honest there's not that much detail here. It's a dramatisation of true accounts and it's much more graphic than I was expecting. It's a film about a war though, it was never going to be pleasant. It's one of those films that always crops up on best of lists though and although those lists are often a bit crap, this certainly isn't. It's exceptionally tense, threat forever imminent in every scene and for all it's brutality, it's astonishingly good... but make no mistake, referring to anything like this as good, feels very alien. The events depicted show humanity at its very worst.

saugoof The story of the Cambodian genocide is one that has practically no parallels in terms of sheer brutality and the impact it has had on a country. And yet this is pretty much the only film that had some sort of widespread reach in the western world. It's a real pity that it wasn't a better film.I did see the movie when it came out originally and while I didn't think it was a brilliant film at the time, it got me interested enough in the subject to read up on in it. Including Dith Pran's book which the film is based upon. Having re-watched it now for the first time in decades and with a lot more background knowledge, the film is full of very big flaws. One of the driving forces for this film is meant to be the friendship between Dith Pran and Sidney Schanberg, but for the first half of the movie, Sidney treats Pran like a low-level employee and there's no real warmth on screen between them. It's only when Pran is forced to leave the French embassy where they've been hiding out and gets sent to a Khmer Rouge labour camp that suddenly this great friendship is highlighted, even though there was little evidence of it shown beforehand.The second half of the movie, with Sidney back in the US and Dith Pran left behind in Cambodia is where the film somewhat hits its stride. That said, reading about his actual experiences, the film feels almost tame in comparison. Roland Joffe also missed a chance of making a bigger impact here by deciding to not use subtitles for any of the Khmer dialog throughout the movie. This means that the second half where it's almost exclusively featuring Cambodians has to work on a visual level for viewers who don't understand the dialog. That means many of the scenes are over-simplified and make them feel less realistic than they should have been.Likely the decision to not use subtitles also means that Dith Pran's time in the killing fields was shortened so much in the movie that it feels like it lasted a couple of weeks rather than the four years it really was.The by far worst aspect of this movie though is the music! I'm sorry but as much respect as I have for Mike Oldfield, he absolutely cannot write movie scores. The music here is so completely out of place and distracting, it ruins all the otherwise great scenes. A perfect example of that is when Pran, Schanberg and a couple of other journalists get captured by Khmer Rouge troops and held hostage in an abandoned Coke factory. What would have been an incredibly tense set of scenes gets absolutely ruined by the music that sounds like it would be better placed in an episode of Gumby. It's so distracting, it almost makes it comical.This is by no means a terrible film. But a few relatively minor changes could have easily made this a great film.

Movie Review When I first saw this movie I loved it. Now, 32 years later, it looks dated and I wonder why I liked it so much in the first place? This is Hollywood getting holier than thou again. And surprise, the enemy is the Khmer Rouge who are initially welcomed by the Cambodians. It turns out to be a, be careful what you wish for because you just may get it.On the one hand Hollywood rarely, if ever, criticizes Communism. On the other hand, the film blames Nixon for the entire thing whereas the US involvement in Indochina was cranked up due to the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Later the Communist Viet Cong / NVA soldiers would flee into Cambodia as a means of escaping US attacks. But that's Hollywood - judge, jury, and executioner.The main issue I have though is the acting. It seems a bit forced and substandard the second time around. I'm not saying acting is better today, I am saying this was not top-shelf stuff.