Inspired by Eric Lomax’s true story and book of the same name, the Railway Man stars Colin Firth, Nicole Kidman, Stellan Skarsgard & Jeremy Irvine, and was directed by Jonathan Teplitzky.

Premise: A former British Army officer, who was tormented as a prisoner of war at a Japanese labor camp during World War II, discovers that the man responsible for much of his treatment is still alive and sets out to confront him.

Review: It begins like a poorly executed romantic movie, too fast and a little messy. Then when we get to the thick of it, the heart of the story and Eric Lomax’s history starts to make sense a little bit, but again it’s executed poorly. The photography is good, the actors gave a decent performance, so it must be the script or the director.

Since the film is based on a true story, it’s a shame that there’s such a lack of emotional involvement. It’s not as gruesome as it could have been for the movie War movie, the torture is kept to a minimum, so they could have pulled on the audience’s heartstrings and played on the emotion card more. I needed to care, to feel for Eric Lomax but I never really did.

As I mentioned the cast gave a decent performance, they were good maybe not great but they were sensitive and raw. Jeremy Irvine is unrecognizable in this film but it feels like he was barely there. Kidman is graceful and reeks of devotion while Firth wears his heart on his sleeve for the audience and Sanada is just sort of impressive.

Although the film did not work for me, I recognized that Eric Lomax’s story is inspiring but the movie failed to help me connect with his amazing story. I feel this is a hit-or-miss situation depending on who you are so tell me, what did you think of The Railway Man?

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