The Winds of War
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DVD Cover Information Actor: Ali MacGraw, Jan-Michael Vincent, John Houseman, Polly Bergen, Robert Mitchum Brand: MITCHUM,ROBERT Cinematographer: Stevan Larner Editor: Earle Herdan Producer: Branko Lustig DVD: Region Code 1 Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; English (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo Format: Box set, Collector's Edition, Color, DVD, Full Screen, Miniseries, NTSC Picture Format: 1.33:1 Running Time: 883 minutes DVD Release Date: 2004-05-25 Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated) Studio: Paramount |
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Movie Reviews of The Winds of War
Movie Review: Acting So Bad It Is Actually Unwatchable
Summary: 1 Stars
More often than not, unless an artful impersonation of a famous person is required, historical drama does not depend on great acting to succeed. It is the events that compel us. A competent ensemble in accurate costumes on credible sets is typically adequate to move the story forward, as in, say, Tora Tora Tora. Regrettably, The Winds of War tests that premise. Ali McGraw as Natalie Jostrow, Jan-Michael Vincent as Byron Henry, and Polly Bergen as Rhoda Henry are all so egregiously incompetent that this mini-series, by the middle of Part Two, became unwatchable. Bergen is the worst, indicating effusively on every line, as if she hadn't been cast in years and was desperate to impress. She plays the wife of a stolid career naval officer as if she's a brainless gushing nine year-old for whom every syllable is the stuff of urgent melodrama. It is all but impossible to reconcile her marriage to Robert Mitchum's Pug Henry, or to fathom the attraction she holds for other men. It is a performance to cringe over. McGraw plays a headstrong exasperating woman, the love interest of two major characters. From the moment she appears, however, the actress is far more exasperating than her character. One of Amazon's 3-star reviews summed it up aptly by describing McGraw as "bland and shrill at the same time." Shrill because, like Bergen and John Houseman in his role, McGraw is posturing instead of acting, bland because there's not a drop of truth or humanity in her work. It's a startlingly self-aggrandizing performance, a smugly prancing star-turn, but for all that, persistently brittle, wooden, and obvious. Bergen wants terribly to show off the full spectrum of human emotions, and falls instantly into embarrassing caricature; while Ali McGraw seems to be outside or above her own story, as if she never read the book and didn't need to -- being the star of Love Story was good enough. Not for this love story it isn't, and certainly not for 15 hours of historical soap opera.