The Backwoods (2006)

Finally a movie with all that 70's taste. Reminds me a mixture between Peckinpah, Friedkin and Yates. The fear sensation it's really well done, and Gary Oldman drives clean into Spanish, and into Spain... I've never listen anything before about Koldo Serra and for sure I'll keep contact with his cinema. Serra controls time like he's been always shooting with a camera since he was young. Tension is always looking for you in the middle of the deep forest were the characters are... Deep characters in weird land, real introvert feelings and nothing easy for people who likes to see typical Hollywood films. And with all this you have to think that is Koldo's first movie! Hard, strong, bright, scary work for your first time master!

Fmovies: First, what's wrong with it. Aside from Cohen's wonderful song, the sound and music were poor and didn't add anything. The cinematography was not particularly inventive or inspiring.

But still a 10.

Why?

Okay you have to catch what this excellent writing is up to.

The twist at the end is pure and righteous symmetry.

It's about justice and revenge, an atypical and furious interpretation of right and wrong. It's got a piece of The Unforgiven about it.

It posits that some things just can't be fixed, and that the penalty does often indeed involve even more suffering of the innocent.

All the acting is excellent. The direction is excellent.

The writing is difficult, twisted, demanding, and wonderful, hard to grasp at first, hard to at first grasp, even at the end. But within it's own pained logic of warfare, just.

The heroic transformation is really spectacularly fierce in that the delivery of justice and punishment requires such a high price to be paid by the destroyed innocent, and the hero, that it at first doesn't even seem like justice.... but it sinks in, that it is.

Sure, it has deliberate echos of Deliverance, but it's actually much more sinister and indirectly more disturbing, not just to personal safety, but to our perception of right and wrong, and justice, punishment, and revenge.

It reminds me in some ways of Death and the Maiden.

It could have almost been a stage piece.

If it wasn't low budget and foreign, with non-U.S.-well-known writing and directing, and with higher "production values", it would have made big stink here.

Or maybe not. Us Americans are often so dull about clear winning and losing, that they get lost in movies like this. Our loss.

Oh, and I want to thank Gary Oldman for taking a shot at this. I wouldn't have known about it or seen it with him, and I thank him for roping me in!

God only knows what great stuff I miss from not having the time to watch everything! I wish I could clone myself and have them watch it so, I would have reviews I could trust! ;)

This was one of the movies I saw in Cannes last month during the film market (it was not part of the festival, which is different) and possibly the worst movie I've seen in a while.

The trailer showed promise. The only reason I went to the screening was because of star Gary Oldman. After the movie ended, myself and my colleagues wondered out loud why Gary Oldman decided to do this empty, shallow movie which was full of clichés and obvious homages to Leone and movies like Deliverance that don't amount to much. A chance to play in Spanish maybe ? That is the only mystery we have in this movie : why did Gary Oldman do it ?

The performances of most of the actors were good except for Virginie Ledoyen who still has not showed that she can play more than one style. I wished the producers had chosen a better actress who has depth and more chemistry with her co-stars. She was by far the weakest actor of the 5 main actors in this movie. Paddy Considine was good as her husband. I'm always impressed by Considine's performances and here he was the actor that gave the most impressive performance out of them all. Gary Oldman and Aitana Sanchez-Gijon were effective as the other married couple. Except for Homar, the rest of the supporting Spanish cast seemed like amateurs doing their first movie.

This is a movie about incommunication and the effects, but unfortunately that theme never gets fully developed. Besides the performance of Considine, the only other good point of this movie is the cinematography.

Everything else about this movie makes it more suitable for viewing as a direct-to-DVD instead of in the theatres. The people I work with did not buy the movie and no one in our company recommended it or felt it was worth it. I don't think Filmax sold it to anyone at the market. Oldman and Considine are good, but 2 good actors are not enough to save a bad film.

I miss seeing Gary Oldman in good films and hope he makes smarter choices in the future. Now I will have to wait for the next Batman to see Oldman in a good film.

The Backwoods fmovies. I enjoyed the movie last week at its Premiere in Madrid. It was very good. A very interesting piece of film art, where the picture is made of a good fusion of beautiful images, ominous silences, sparkling sounds, mature musics, good acting, rhythm, great photography, etc. A very good tension is achieved in the film and even though the story may be somehow known in the history of the movies (there are confessed prior references) is this time treated differently and with a bright eye which captures your eye and grasps your attention from the very beginning. All actors bright in the movie, specially Oldman and Homar, although all the cast is really convincing (mention also Ms. Ledoyen, Ms. Sánchez-Gijón and Mr. Considine).

It is not a perfect work of art (art is as such impossible of perfection) but is a real work of art.

For that reason, I cannot really understand (yet there may be a reason which may not be so difficult to explain, such as an explicit boycott) how so many people voted so low for this movie, ... and they did it even before it was officially released!! I hope now the public can make accurate and sincere voting without any particular economic interest or prejudice.

I do really recommend it to all the people interested in good movies.

I saw the director's short film which was not good but at least interesting and much better than this full-length movie "Bosque de sombras". Gary Oldman is obviously the only star in this movie but contrary to what the other reviewer said, I believed the Spanish cast was good. It was interesting to hear Gary Oldman speak some Spanish and I give this movie 3 stars because of Aitana Sanchez-Gijon and him.

Aitana Sanchez-Gijon, who is an excellent Spanish actress that I last watched in "The Machinist" with Christian Bale and was also in other English language movies like "A Walk in the clouds" plays Gary Oldman's wife. She can express mystery and emotion without saying any dialogue. I think she is one of the best but underrated Spanish actresses today. Lluís Homar was brilliant, in my opinion, and also the little girl.

I was mixed about Paddy Considine. I think he is a good actor but next to Gary Oldman, he was less interesting. In "Cinderella man" with Russel Crowe, he was excellent and also in "In America," but in this movie, he was only interesting when he was not in a scene with Gary Oldman but in scenes with the other actors, he steals every scene. I think that shows how strong Gary Oldman is that brilliant actors like Considine seem to fade next to him.

This movie is the first English language movie for Virginie Ledoyen since "The Beach" and I think it is fair to say that she will always be known as the girl from "The Beach" because she is a bland and boring actress. Even in french films she is dull because she lacks the range that other actresses her age have. In this movie, she is not at all convincing as her character. She "acts" better in her 30-second adverts for L'Oréal.

The biggest problem of this movie is the writing and the directing. Serra and his co-writer lack the skill in writing a coherent and original scénario. Stealing from other movies was a bad idea. There should have been more development in this to make it a real movie. Also, Serra uses the camera techniques of 70's directors which is OK at first but when he does this all the time it is distracting and does not serve any purpose except style. We all know it is set in the 70's but the directing should always be related to the story because style is cheap and easy and anyone who works only on style with no script should just direct commercials and music videos. Skip this movie and rent "Straw dogs" instead.

A movie dealing with outsiders stuck out in an inhospitable bucolic nightmare. Definitely a paced and concentrated mix of tension and violence.Hostility sticks out all over this film and the performances are superb. This is a well worked trope but it doesn't matter. Highly recommended if you are keen on things like HAUTE TENSION, WOLF CREEK , SHY PEOPLE or DELIVERANCE. Gary Oldman,who has a great track record and versatility not matched does a grand job here.Probably one of his best roles to date. The villains are a sinister bunch of hill-folk,hints are made in reference to inbreeding and unspeakable acts but all is understated.A climate of violence prevails but does not descend into cartoon-like nonsense ala Tarantino(not knocking Mr T.). Rural Spanish Gothic.