The Trotsky (2009)

I enjoyed The Trotsky, most of it anyway. I liked the fact that it doesn't take its audience as complete illiterate and assumes that you would catch some of the historic references. I prefer that than having everything spelled out for me. Jay Baruchel is just creepy enough, without becoming really scary in his obsession with being the real Leon Trotsky. I was rather uncomfortable with the relationship with Alexandra; that was one of the drawbacks of the movie. I loved the portrayal of Montreal with the English and the French intermingling in conversation and everyday life - even if it's not at all the main point of the movie. My main critic would go to Geneviève Bujold, who plays a commissioner of the school board, or something like that. I don't think I've ever seen such overacting before. She was awful. I always heard people say how she was a great actress, well, I did not see that here. I could not stop thinking how bad she was every time she was opening her mouth. Even every gesture she was making was over the top. Anyways, she doesn't have a huge role, so it didn't really spoil the movie. All in all, I enjoyed it and I would see it again.

Fmovies: In Jacob Tierney's The Trotsky, Jay Baruchel plays Leon Bronsetin, a 17-year-old student who believes he is the reincarnation of former Soviet hero, Leon Trotsky. Leon believes so strongly of his re-embodiment that he models his young life around the history of the 20th century Soviet leader including his relentless pursuit of an older woman by the name of Alexandra that he believes is his fate to wed.

Leon's first confrontation based on his unfounded notion of birthright comes at his father's factory where Leon begins to assemble the staff to stand up for their rights as employees and suggests the origin of a union. Leon is defiant of his father's intention of meeting scheduled deadlines y rallying the employees in a coup to accept the right to take a full hour for lunch even at the peril of their shipping targets. A sit-in and hunger strike soon follow to fairly chuckable results.

Unamused at his son's behavior, the father (Saul Rubinek) ships Leon to public school where Leon immediately picks up the cause for those suffering from the fascist regime of the educational system. This puts Leon and his school principal (Colm Feore) on a collision course where school officials oppose Leon's determination to set up a student Union and give his classmates a voice against tyranny.

The Trotsky is a mildly entertaining but far too lengthy of a film that tries to parallel a history lesson into an amusing story of a misunderstood young boy. Baruchel plays the titular character incredibly well invoking the awkwardness of a young Leon trying to fight back against rival adults countering his arguments. But unfortunately, the heavy handedness of the subject matter and length to which the single joke is expected to encompass, wears on the patience of the audience and many will be lost by the low keyed humor coupled with a slow momentum build towards an anti-climax.

Too often in The Trotsky, we experience scenes that make the film uneven in tone. The 17-year-old's sexual relationship with a 27-year-old and the hostage taking of the school principal are just two samples of how the film takes a smart subject and intelligent dialogue and warps it into reels of unease. These sequences do little to help you create a bond with the lead character so that the ending might have any combined sense of accomplishment where audiences might care about the fate or future of the central character.

The Trotsky isn't all bad, but one can't help but wonder who the film was made for enjoyment. Younger audiences won't care for the adult situations, older audiences won't have the patience or relate to the cause and fans of Canadian or independent film will be worn down by the lack of any real energy or force to carry us through nearly two hours of paper thin flimsiness.

The Trotsky, therefore is a miss. It would have been a great short, possibly even an interesting page turner of a book, but it is hardly a film worth looking out for.

Boredom and Apathy - that is what this movie is all about. (In my opinion)

The lead character Leon and his Trotsky obsession are actually symbolic of leadership. Trotsky dealt with apathy and boredom but found his means to manifest the phenomena of the Russian revolution. Leon must deal with apathy and boredom but will he become a leader?

The Odessa Steps dream sequences are a delightful and comical look into Leons head. The movie is worth seeing just for this!

I greatly enjoyed the skillful performances from each character. Their dialog is top notch and the director pulls this 'Trotsky' idea together nicely.

What is the fate of Leon - we will never know.

The Trotsky fmovies. An important film, the question are you inactive through boredom or apathy is central to the plot though the theme is easier for me to understand as, wait for things to happen or control your life. It is important for people to take a active part in life and in this film Leon Bronstein finds the students letting fate do as it may with them and gets them to take a hand in their lives and the world around them. This theme appears everywhere in life and this film helps clarify it by showing how you can change things and why you should do so. This theme appears in psychology, be responsible for what happens to you, for example, also a woman from Africa, talking on CNN, said, you must not wait for things to happen but make them happen, a message women, more given to accepting their lot, need to hear. The film also links getting the students to take an active role at school to sexual abuse at schools, another important topic, the hero says that, had sexually abused children had a student union they could have stopped the abuse. Even in school people are in danger. The theme of bullying in school and abuse is very big just now and Bronstein does face and defeat bullying not by saying things will get better, which is wishful thinking but by effective and complicated action, which I judge to be a more real way to deal with things. rose macaskie

Leon Bronstein (Jay Baruchel) is a gawky teen who idolizes Leon Trotsky and wants to unionize his father (Saul Rubinek)'s business. He hounds leftist lawyer Frank McGovern (Michael Murphy) unless he agrees to help. He meets older woman Alexandra Leith (Emily Hampshire). He is convinced that he is the reincarnation of Trotsky and she is Leon's first wife Aleksandra. Mocking his Trotsky reincarnation, his father takes him out of boarding school and put into a Montreal public high school. Principal Berkhoff (Colm Feore) runs a tight ship and they soon become adversaries. Leon needs to find his Lenin and joins the student union. He finds fascism in detention and tries to unionize his high school.

This is chalk full of charm. It's very cute with the awkward Jay Baruchel. He is adorably delusional. He's never annoying even though his character is stubbornly uncompromising. It could use a more comedic touch with the writing. The socialist references may go over most of the general public and it's not wacky enough for one of those crude teen comedies. It doesn't really fall into an easy category and it doesn't help that it is so laden with Canadiana. When it does go into wacky territories, it doesn't really do it in a LOL fashion. However its heart is in the right place and like Alexandra, one can't avoid the Leon storm and accept his insanity.

I read some really bad reviews of this movie before going to see it. In the end, I liked it better than I thought I would. However, a lot of the political humour is very basic and wouldn't make sense to people with more than a passing knowledge of communism, activism, etc.

However, as a teen comedy, not to be taken seriously as a political film, it works very well for the most part. A lot of the scenes, acting, and one-liners are quite funny.

Some of the acting done by secondary characters is not really up to par. Even Leon's character or that of his co-stars (his parents, principal, would-be wife, etc.) tend to be one-dimensional. I think this film could have been improved by occasional moments of self-reflection or doubt. As it is, Leon's character tends to come across as a quirky cartoon a lot of the time.

Still, as a light form of amusement, it works quite well.