The plot actually telegraphs whodunnit, but the actors try to keep it a secret by mumbling lines or speaking in unintelligble accents and murmurs.

We did our duty by seeing it. Presentation was adequate. We wondered at first why the fader was up, but the muddy sound soon made that apparent. I enjoyed the nachos as much as the film, and was rooting for the dog.

Rober Altman has done it again.

Altman has taken a great murder mystery premise, a stellar cast of the best of British actors, a great location (a fabulous English aristocratic mansion) and great period wardrobe/settings, and delicately combined all of these elements to produce a film that most senior directors in the USA would be unable or unwilling to produce.

Or to put it another way Robert Altman has succeeded in directing a film that, in essence, and having due regard to cinematic excellence and film craftmanship, is one of the most boring films ever produced on this planet by any director, American or otherwise.

Altman begins the film by disorientating the audience in much the same way as Baz Luhrmann disorientates (and alienates) the audience in Moulin Rouge. Unlike Luhrmann, who uses fast editing as a way of disorientating the audience, Altman uses copious amounts of dialogue to do the same. The film rolls on, gathering excess dialogue like a giant snowball gathers excess snow until, 2 1/2 hours later, the snowball has completely crushed any interest out of the audience.

It is not hard to see why so many big names actors want to work with Altman. He manages to find lines and screen time for actors where other directors would dare not have looked. The irrelevance of much of the script to the plot, particularly early on in the film, is a biblical effort of directorial incompetence. Clearly Altman owns shares in the film company that supplied the film as he uses truckloads of it. Such filmmaking may satisfy the vain ambitions of actors and actresses but it does not do a lot for the craft of film-making.

To be fair you can't get a group of talented actors this good together and not produce at least some small morsels of cinematic pleasure. Maggie Smith manages to deliver some superbly sarcastic and funny lines but these are too few and not even her credible efforts to save this sinking ship are good enough. Even competent performances by Kelly Macdonald & Emily Watson (I bet she wishes she had done Amelie instead of this stinker now) and an impressive effort by Helen Mirren, fail to bring enough lifeboats because this cast of actors have sailed on a cinematic Titanic.

The film, by the way, is not strictly a murder, mystery of the type the British are famous for. Rather, it is a satire on the British class system and the murder, mystery premise is merely a vehicle for Altman to tease out the hidden truths about British snobbery and about the private lives of the guests and servants at an English mansion.

How on earth this film has been nominated for so many British and Academy awards is probably the greatest mystery of all. Probably the sad truth is that if you stack your films with as many top notch actors as possible (by offering them lots of screen time) you can fool the critics into thinking that because the film has that many top notch actors it MUST be good. Probably Helen Mirren deserves an award for competent acting in the face of a verbose script.

Rating 6 stars out of 10.

cheers Peter

The dialogue was at times unintelligible and irrelevant. I mostly enjoyed the secret lives of the servants when I was enjoying anything at all. I even managed to fall asleep once or twice, so maybe I missed something. Two and a half hours of my life that I will never get back.

I think 6 out of 10 is too generous, I was thinking more along the lines of 3.

I could have rated it lower but that would have been unfair to some quality actors in the movie who tried heroically to rescue the sinking ship. This film is not the actors fault. The blame rests squarely with the Director.

Compared to the other Best Picture nominees, Gosford Park looks like a masterpiece. The younger 'uns obviously don't go for this type of film. It's a picture that sans F-bombs (which don't belong in a costume drama) would be a Best Picture contender in any year.

Mumbling? Wasn't so where I saw it (AMC Hamilton, weekend after the Golden Globe Awards). Because of the way the film is directed you have to keep your eyes and ears open. Thankfully for someone my age the sound mix is gentle yet effective.

The score and the Ivor Novello songs would have made the album a best-seller any time up to the mid-1970s. I'll have to see if the songs are included in the album. Jeremy Northam definitely was robbed of a Best Supporting Actor nomination; it's a rare case where an actor turns out to be a good singer as well.

My mom has been dead for a while. I don't think I'll try that. She wouldn't have liked it anyway.

"The younger 'uns obviously don't go for this type of film."

Huh? I don't go for this type of film, and I ain't a "younger 'un."

"Because of the way the film is directed you have to keep your eyes and ears open."

Gee. I'll have to remember that.

Some people go for posers, gloss, and big name directors even when their work isn't up to their own standards.

Besides the whole movie was too class and elitist oriented and too stylized for my taste.

I agree on Bobby Altman, he hasn't directed anything decent except for MASH. That was even just mildly humorous. He is so soft as a director, I wonder why ANYONE keeps giving him money to make films. I TELL YOU WHY, there are just enough people who see his films that he is still profitable.

I am just glad that I do not know any of them.

I went for this type of film and I believe that I'm a younger 'un

I liked it and I guess I'm alone on it. It was definatly about a reel too long and did feel dragged out at times but it kept me guessing_and_thinking_and_changing my mind about who did it until the very end.

 |  IP: Logged