The Poet

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Audience Member The Poet - Hearts of War (2007) directed by Damian Lee and written by Jack Crystal is a Holocaust movie which centers around the forbidden love story of a rabbis daughter fleeing persecution and an idealistic German poet turned officer forced to fight in a war he fundamentally does not believe in. Holocaust movies generally are deeply emotional pieces with a straightforward take on an aspect of the holocaust, even the bad movies accomplish that. For example, take The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (2008), a highly controversial film about the tragic friendship between a Nazi boy whose father runs a death camp, and a Jewish boy who works in the camp. The film has a highly unconventional plot which culminates to a even more unconventional ending. It leaves viewers with a sense of compassion for a high ranking Nazi official, something that made many people, including myself, outraged. Even though the movie focused on the wrong side of the Holocaust, it made the viewers care about the characters presented in the story and developed a plot. The poet did nothing of the sort. For a movie incorporating such a promising idea coupled with well defined characters, it was inexcusably bad. It took a forbidden holocaust love story and somehow made it boring; the writers used some sort of black magic to turn scenes like, the death of a newborn baby or the selfless sacrifice of a lover, into almost feelingless mundane events. It also takes an absurdly large amount of time looking at Oscars discontent with WWII, and wars in general, rather than focusing on developing its own plot. If there was a, “The Holocaust as a Decoration” movie category, The Poet - Hearts of War would fit perfectly into it, unfortunately since that category does not exist, I would have to consider this a tangential Holocaust film. The people scripting this seemed to have a bad case of plot ADHD, the storyline incorporates far too many pieces at once and in the process losses any sense of what it is. I think Gary Goldstein at the Los Angeles Times hit it right on the head when he said “There's a viable story lurking within the World War II melodrama The Poet, but much of it likely landed on the cutting room floor.” The movie has an unfortunate amount of wasted potential. IMDB far too kind with its 5.3/10 rating. The movie was nominated for no awards, has no listing on Metacritics, and not even enough reviews to get a percentage from Rotten Tomatoes. I think it is fair to say the 11 Million Canadian Dollars spent on this movie would have been better used as kindling for a fire to keep Rachel warm at the beginning of the movie, then she would have never needed rescuing and this whole story could have been avoided. In the ending scene of the movie, Oscar states to his captive, “One day this war will end … everyone will go back to normal … at least the dead will not know how futile it was.” Replace the word war with movie and that perfectly sums up my feelings for The Poet - Hearts of War, at least the dead did not have to suffer through it. I would give this movie a well deserved 1.7/10. (I Wrote this Review for a Film Class, Only Reason I Bothered Writing It.) Rated 1/5 Stars •  Rated 1 out of 5 stars 01/25/23 Full Review Audience Member If you're going to make a film about Europeans, don't cast Americans in the roles - the types that go to films because of movie stars are not your target audience anyway. This somewhat jarring inauthenticity ruins what is otherwise a well-made tearjerker. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 01/31/23 Full Review Audience Member This is a good movie that paces well, is beautifully shot, has interesting characters and should appeal to everybody... Rated 2/5 Stars •  Rated 2 out of 5 stars 02/10/23 Full Review Audience Member (**): [img]http://images.rottentomatoes.com/images/user/icons/icon13.gif[/img] This film is just a bit too melodramatic for me. Fair at best. Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 01/18/23 Full Review Audience Member It was OK. That's about all I really have to say. It was not inspired, it was just average. Rated 2/5 Stars •  Rated 2 out of 5 stars 02/22/23 Full Review Audience Member Poetically Poignant about one of the most Beautiful Love Triangles of WWII between a Poetry writing German Soldier(Jonathan Scarfe) a Jewish Beauty(Nina Dobrev), & her forgiving & selfless Jewish Fiance(Zachary Bennett) who marries her while she is pregnant by the German Soldier, while trying to survive the Nazi's in Poland.To survive, Rachel(Dobrev) becomes a Cabaret Entertainer & Prostitute, her Husband Bernard does unspeakable Odd Jobs, there she reunites with Oskar who thinks she is dead, at the same time, a German Soldier kills her baby because of the crying.She & her husband have to flee , they are being hunted by German Soldiers, but captured by Russian Resistance.Meanwhile her Solider, Oskar, is sent to round up Resistance.I don't want to Spoil the ending for you, but the most Selfless of Sacrifices is made in the name of Love.I adored this Film Rated 4.5/5 Stars •  Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 02/19/23 Full Review Read all reviews

The Poet

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