3.5 stars out of 4 — “The performance of Jim Sturgess as McGartland helps place his decision into the day-by-day process of acting on it.”
Chicago Sun-Times - Roger Ebert (08/19/2009)

“The decibels, energy and overall quality are high in writer-director Kari Skogland’s FIFTY DEAD MEN WALKING, her supremely well-made, highly stylized, graphic tale…”
Hollywood Reporter - Doris Toumarkine (08/18/2009)

3 stars out of 5 — “The suspenseful spy thriller FIFTY DEAD MEN WALKING will surprise espionage fans….Canadian filmmaker Kari Skogland uses a brutal shooting to launch her film into action.”
Box Office - Steve Ramos (08/20/2009)

“The scenes between Sturgess and Kingsley are riveting, as Kingsley alternately cozens and commands, playing his reluctant informer like a fish on a line.” — Grade: B
A.V. Club - Tasha Robinson (08/20/2009)

“Sturgess has been The Next Big Thing for about three years now, and he legitimately earns that distinction here: All crazy eyes and sneering charm…”
Movieline - Movieline (08/19/2009)

“Writer-director Kari Skogland’s sharp-edged, doc-style drama is loosely based on the true story of Martin McGartland…” — Grade: B
Entertainment Weekly - Lisa Schwarzbaum (09/04/2009)

“Terrific performances and an array of kinetic action scenes help distinguish FIFTY DEAD MEN WALKING…”
Los Angeles Times - Gary Goldstein (12/04/2009)

Peter Weir’s overlooked travel film about a group of men escaping from a Russian Gulag is amazing for all sorts of reasons but consider the following image for a second to get a handle on the reasons behind The Way Back’s true power to shock and amaze. [Click Map]

The points on the map roughly represent the key travelling points of the film as the band of escapees (led by Jim Sturgess) travel from Siberia - in the above roughly represented by the Russian town of Khamakar - to Lake Baikal, to Mongolia and on through to Tibet and India. It’s an incredible journey, made even more incredible by what happens when you ask Google Maps to provide you with directions for it.

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PLOT: Prisoners in a Siberian Gulag circa-1939, escape their captors and attempt to walk to India, in order to evade their communist jailers.

REVIEW: THE WAY BACK is the latest film from director Peter Weir, and if that isn’t cause for excitement, I don’t know what is. Seriously folks. THE LAST WAVE. GALLIPOLI. WITNESS. THE MOSQUITO COAST. DEAD POETS SOCIETY. THE TRUMAN SHOW. MASTER & COMMANDER. These are just a sampling of his films. THE WAY BACK is a film that would have been an epic blockbuster if it had been made back in the sixties, seventies, or even the eighties- but now is considered “uncommercial”, and was unable to secure a large distributor, and is only getting a modest theatrical release.

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neitherfamenorfortune:

You like a Peter Weir film. Even if you don’t realise it. You like The Truman Show, or Witness, or Master And Commander, or Dead Poet’s Society, or The Mosquito Coast, or Gallipoli, or The Year of Living Dangerously. Or. Or. Or.

For me, a new Weir film is like an event. Not quite Malick or Kubrickian lengths between releases but it’s always considerable and always gets me excited.

For me, The Way Back is remarkable. It has stayed with me. It’s angry at the modern world and our laziness and how much we whinge about our lives. It tells a brutal, incredible true story that left me breathless both thematically and cinematically.

There’s no gimmicks. It’s huge, sweeping, intimate, moving and dramatic. What I loved though, was how Weir strayed from the expected. The moments we expect to see in stories like this, of large scale true stories of heroism and sacrifice are mostly missing. He skips over what we expect to happen, in favour of making us focus on other moments, other times in the lives and events of these people. It works a treat. We grow to understand the length and time aspects, over the usual natural hardships which are there, but focused on differently.

The performances are fantastic, the location work and make up astounding and I’m gutted that the release falls between the delivery of 2010 best of lists, and the start of 2011 eligibility.

I love Peter Weir, and just hope he doesn’t wait so long next time. Brilliant filmmaking.

We don’t do well in the snow in England. Arterial transport clogs, deliveries pile up, and many of us worry about frostbite and hypothermia and begin composing Captain Oates speeches after only half an hour building a snowman.

When the mercury slides below zero for more than a day, conditions are ‘Arctic’. When we need a level of frigidity beyond even that of the polar ice cap, it’s called ‘Siberian’.  And, if Peter Weir’s The Way Back is anything to go by, it’s a good job most of us will never have to experience a genuine Siberian winter.

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Digital Spy Review

Monday, December 20 2010

By Stella Papamichael

Seven years have passed since Master & Commander (2003), the last big screen outing for director Peter Weir. That’s despite a glowing CV that includes Witness (1985), Mosquito Coast (1986), The Truman Show (1998) and Fearless (1993). His latest has echoes of his 1975 study in survival Picnic At Hanging Rock, but with the war-is-hell, macho thrust of his 1981 classic Gallipoli. It isn’t quite as great as that film, but it’s still an awe-inspiring epic of man versus nature (inspired by true events during WWII) as a group of escaped prisoners run 4,000 miles over hostile terrain.

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