A week or so ago the film Nuremburg appeared on my streaming app and over the weekend I sat aside 150 minutes to relax and enjoy what I hoped would be a very good film. There have only been around half a dozen or so films that I have not made it through and being someone who loves history and war films this was only the second war film that got turned off half way through. The other was Dunkirk where people were more interested in the filmography techniques than the actual story. There is a major problem if someone who enjoys Second World War films and has watched 99% of them ever made turns one off before the end. Watching one hour I at least was trying to give it a chance and was a very hard watch.
The story is there so how can you screw this up so badly and in Nuremburg's case it was not Russel Crowe, but the actor who played Goring's psychologist. Rami Malek is his name and you may recognize him from playing the role of Freddie Mercury and some weird James Bond villain. Historical true stories are so hard to get wrong as the story line is already there and Crowe as Goring was the headline actor but is definitely over shadowed by Malak for all the wrong reasons. I actually cannot find anything decent with this film and the only plus is I never paid to go watch this at the cinema.
The problem is some actors can be type cast by the roles they have previously played and because Malek has features that are just different and not exactly normal any facial expression may look as though he is over acting. Don't get me wrong there is nothing wrong with being different except when it comes to acting because it can be very off putting.
I am sure Malek is a good actor in certain roles yet his role was too important in this film to cock up. His facial expressions and buggy type eyes were not natural and looked as though he was chewing on some type of gum guard. For me this was unbearable and up to this point in the film was the main actor so he is unavoidable.
I see there was a fil review done by The Guardian and at least they felt the same as me on Malek.
Casting and getting the right actors playing the roles is crucial to a film's success and Malek for me is just the wrong person playing this role. This is a serious film about real life events and they may as well have had Jim Carey playing this role with the various facial expressions being done.
I am really disappointed as I was looking forward to this and even getting to the 60 minute mark was a struggle. Maybe in the future I will revisit this and see if I can make the end , but I do not see that happening. The problem is the American psychologist who Malek portrays is the main actor thus far up to the hour mark so virtually every scene he is involved somewhere.
I think everyone has actors or actresses they cannot stomach watching and I have a few I will avoid. Jack Black and Adam Sandler head the list and now Rami Malek joins that illustrious list of films to avoid if they are involved.