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Another surprising movie of relevance from director Uwe Boll, known mostly for his video game adaptations. This tackles a serious subject and handles it with the proper amount of respect and disgust. The acting is better than average, the action scenes are potent and gut-wrenching. The characters, on both sides of the conflict, needed to be fleshed out more giving the movie a deeper feel instead of just skimming the surface which is what we got.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
03/31/23
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Audience Member
Darfur (2009)
Directed by: Uwe Boll
R, 1 hr. 44 min.
Release Date: November 6, 2009
Here is a dramatised documentory film of a particular explanitory incedent of both attrocities and a more global view of a predicament for humanitarians to solve.
Not much characterization except some background suggesting brand-name on persons to get even an idea of different types or attitudes the cast would portray.
Our embellished acts to view drove home a boring if not frustraightingly tear jerky feeling of helplessness for the victims like this somwhere in the world, many times over, even at the same time.
Who is really to blame here and conclusive result must there be, this you can see for 'right freakin now' in your own hearts, what would you have done/chose to accept it. Outright this story is told (can't miss 'it') and the distruction of this viewpoint of record is a very known option posing vunerability to millions in safe moral contentment, be very aware of this fact.
And so alas we're not all a wealthy celeb able to adopt multitudes of babies, saving thier lives in doing so,.
I'll leave you with that notion of human rights inilation, not just an afternoons events at a gastly village confrontation of a gurilla warfare defensive 'desparate situation'.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
01/24/23
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Audience Member
Darfur is directed by the enfant terrible manqué (or the German equivalent) self publishing Uwe Boll. It is a truly awful and grotesque film. Awful in the sense that it is technically bad and an insult to the people of the Sudan. Grotesque in that it is a work of unremitting, charmless terror pornography on the part of Boll. It has a thin, clichéd plot. 2005 Sudan. A group of western journos from central casting drive to a remote village to expose atrocities. There is a quiet, serious journalist, a grizzled cynical journalist, a blond naïve journalist, a war torn cameraman and a young wacky cameraman. Black African men, women and children leading a simple life populate the village.
Arab horsemen arrive. They are armed with AK47 and RPGs. They are lead by a handsome, well spoken, heartless Arab dressed entirely in black. Again, from central casting. I thought he might say 'No, Mr Bond, I expect you to die'. There follows 80 minutes of unremitting, graphic violence. Everyone is chased though the village, cornered, rounded up and shot or hacked to death with machetes, spears and wooden stakes. Women are raped, babies thrown on the grounded and shot or hacked. Blood, limbs and heads abound. The unremitting inevitability of death reminded me of Funny Games but without the art, style and direction. It is a sort of post modern Scarface meets 300 without the jokes. The blood, violence and gore continues, pointlessly for 80 minutes. There are 20 minutes at the end when 3 journos return only to be killed in the action.
All it produced in me was a rising anger against Boll for producing this nasty, sickening and harrowing piece of torture porn. If you want to know about Darfur read Wikipedia and then try and find a film that has a decent story line, character development, non gratuitous violence (ie finely judged and essential to the point and the narrative drive of the film) embedded in a developing plot. Also, try and find a film that doesn't press you with the disproportionate premis that Arab = bad and everyone else = good. I am not a Moslem.
I should also add it is filmed in the most annoying and jerky handheld quasi-documentary style. If the whole effort wasn't so awful I would say it was a work of 1st year film student fans of The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield. There was no sense of perspective, proportion or judgment. This film was Bollocks (why hasn't this word hasn't been applied the director before). I dont know what the great actor David OHara was doing in it.
Rated 0.5/5 Stars •
Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars
02/25/23
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Audience Member
ATROCIOUS shaky cam, piss-poor acting, and wants to be too much like Blood Diamond or Tears of the Sun.
Rated 0.5/5 Stars •
Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars
02/10/23
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Audience Member
Autant ses adaptations de jeux vidéo s'apparentent-t-elles généralement à un crachat à la gueule du 7ème art, autant ses productions plus personnelles constituent, elles, un curieux témoignage que Uwe Boll est bien un réalisateur à part entière, avec certes nettement plus de tares que de forces, mais dont les choix et les méthodes de travail témoignent d'une relative cohérence. Difficile de juger si "Darfur" relevait d'un réel souci, de la part du réalisateur allemand, de militer en faveur d'une intervention internationale dans la région ou plus simplement de l'occupation cynique d'un thème délaissé par le cinéma couplé à une conscience froide de ses compétences plus que limitées (si Boll est capable de filmer quelque chose à peu près correctement, c'est bien la violence brute). Accordons-lui le bénéfice du doute et considérons 'Darfur' comme s'il était concerné par le premier cas de figure. Du coup, les faiblesses congénitales du cinéma selon Uwe Boll (cadrages primaires et brouillons, direction d'acteur inexistante, large part laissée à l'improvisation) s'apparenteraient ici presque à des qualités, vu la volonté de réalisme et le sentiment d'urgence qui se dégagent du film. Le procédé est binaire, manichéen : 45 minutes pour faire découvrir les villageois et leurs familles et les rendre sympathiques et humains ; 45 minutes à les observer se faire tailler en pièce par les milices janjaweed, sous le regard impuissant des journalistes occidentaux. C'est fort primaire mais ça marche, la violence barbare des seconds étant exposée sans la moindre fausse-pudeur. De quoi faire de 'Darfur', certainement pas un bon film au sens strict du terme mais un "docu-fiction" d'un relatif intérêt politique et historique.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
02/05/23
Full Review
Audience Member
MASSACRE is the best word to describe this movie, and this time it is literal. It's interesting, dynamic and touching, yet so strong and brutal, I'm not sure I'm happy I've seen it.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
02/09/23
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