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Title: The Way Back (2010)
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| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Dragos Bucur | ... | Zoran | |
| Colin Farrell | ... | Valka | |
| Ed Harris | ... | Mr. Smith | |
| Alexandru Potocean | ... | Tomasz | |
| Saoirse Ronan | ... | Irena | |
| Mark Strong | ... | Khabarov | |
| Gustaf Skarsgård | ... | Voss | |
| Jim Sturgess | ... | Janusz | |
| Sebastian Urzendowsky | ... | Kazik | |
| Zachary Baharov | ... | Interrogator (as Zahari Baharov) | |
 |
Sally Brunski | ... | Janusz's Wife, 1939 (as Sally Edwards) |
|
|
Igor Gnezdilov | ... | Bohdan |
|
|
Dejan Angelov | ... | Andrei |
|
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Stanislav Pishtalov | ... | Commandant |
| Mariy Rosen | ... | Lazar (as Marii Grigorov) | |
In 1941, three men attempt to flee communist Russia, escaping a Siberian gulag. This movie tells their story and that of four others who escaped with them and a teenage girl, Irena Zielinska (Saoirse Ronan), who joins them in flight. The group's natural leader is Janusz Weiszczek (Jim Sturgess), a Pole condemned by accusations secured by torturing his wife, spent much of his youth outdoors, and knows how to live in the wild. They escape under cover of a snowstorm: cynical American Mr. Smith (Ed Harris), Russian thug Valka (Colin Farrell), comedic accountant Zoran (Dragos Bucur), pastry chef Tomasz Horodinsky (Alexandru Potocean), who draws, Priest Andrejs Voss (Gustav Skarsgård), and Polish Kazik (Sebastian Urzendowsky), who suffers from night blindness. They face freezing nights, lack of food and water, mosquitoes, an endless desert, the Himalayas, as well as many moral and ethical dilemmas throughout the journey towards freedom. Written by <jhailey@hotmail.com>, Shahob, Bellingham, WA, US
I mean these men escaped a Russian gulag and WALKED 4,000 miles from Siberia to India, come on...
So this movie is based on the 1959 memoir "The Long Walk" (of which there is some debate over its validity). Regardless I really enjoyed it, the story is incredible and I'd been looking foreword to seeing what they would do in the movie version. Throw in a top notch cast as our Siberian gulag escapees (Colin Farrell, Ed Harris, Jim Sturgess) and this should have been fantastic. All I can say there is maybe my expectations were too high because honestly I came away a little disappointed, actually preferring the book.
The movie itself was very long and kind of jumped around. Granted they had a lot of material to cover as our men escape under cover of a snowstorm and undertake a treacherous journey across thousands of miles of hostile terrain. They face freezing nights, lack of food and water, injuries, mosquitoes, an endless desert, the Himalayas, and moral questions of when to leave someone behind.
The cinematography is beautiful, the scenery breathtaking and everyone does a great job. Ed Harris is excellent as the American Mr. Smith (love him) and Colin Ferrell (love him a bit more) was awesome as a tattooed gang-style prisoner, with an amazing Russian accent. As a point of interest his character is not in the book. The scenes in the blizzard and the Gobi desert stand out to me and are brutal but well done. 08.11