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A brutal, less spectacular cousin to "The Bridge on the River Kwai," the film centers on events that followed the British surrender of Singapore in 1942 and the subsequent Japanese use of British prisoners of war to construct a railway line from Thailand into Burma. The film slowly unfolds through flashbacks as layer upon layer of a World War II veteran's repressed memories are stripped away. Arguably, it could have been tougher, more savage, but then it might be harder to sit through.īased on a true memoir of survival, love, retribution, and forgiveness, "The Railway Man" sets off from Edinburgh at a leisurely pace. This is a strange movie, grim but highly watchable. The horrors of the forced labour that built the railway and the relentless brutality of the Japanese soldiers are both vividly conveyed, and the ending manages to be poignant without trespassing into mawkishness. If anything, Colin Firth gives a slightly under-powered performance (and Nicole Kidman's part gives her too little to work with), but Jeremy Irvine is intensely believable as the wartime Lomax, geeky and quietly heroic. THE RAILWAY MAN lacks the "majesty" of Lean's famous epic, but I suspect that Alex Guinness's performance would seem very theatrical by the standards of screen acting today. David Lean's BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI casts a huge shadow over this movie. And it serves up a vivid reminder that the Japanese of the 1940s were, like the Nazis, from a different generation, almost from a different race. Based on a true story, it's also a tale of love and redemption, two of the cinema's (and literature's) greatest themes. It's a tense story about one of the great horrors of World War Two. Yesterday I saw THE RAILWAY MAN and can't understand why the critics have been so dismissive. Last week I saw American HUSTLE and couldn't understand why the critics have so raved about it.