Rosewater (2014)

the audience applauded

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Boring

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Decent debut from Jon Stewart.The true story of Maziar Bahari, an Iran-Canadian Newsweek journalist who went back to Iran in 2009 to cover the national elections. Once the despot Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the incumbent, wins the Presidency, protests breaks out. After filming and reporting on the election and protests, Bahari is arrested, imprisoned and tortured.The first film, as director, for Jon Stewart, of The Daily Show fame. He also wrote the screenplay, adapted from Bahari's book "Then they came for me". A good place for Stewart to start as he knows Bahari well and had interviewed him many times on The Daily Show. Plus, Bahari's light-hearted interview with Jason Jones on The Daily Show is used against him during his arrest.An interesting story, though doesn't really cover any new ground regarding freedom and how despots treat their people. Not a very compelling story, for this reason. Stewart pretty much covers the story in linear, blow-by-blow fashion, with the only departure from this being that the first scene is Bahari's arrest, and then we go back in time to see what lead to it.Solid work from Gael Garcia Bernal in the lead role. Supporting cast are fine too.A good enough start from Jon Stewart. He had a story he wanted to tell, and he told it. With experience and confidence he'll get better at telling stories in movie form.

The true story of journalist Maziar Bahari felt tailor-made to be a movie and it was only fitting that it was made by Jon Stewart.The story is powerful and emotional and the performances—especially from Gael García Bernal—were incredible. The only downside I have for the film is its lack of replay value and the emotional and dramatic impact of the events felt slightly less than they should have been due to the film's soundtrack that, in my opinion, wasn't as strong as the action unfolding in the story. The music just wasn't complimentary enough for me. Aside from this, the film is still very powerful and a great first outing for director Jon Stewart.

Why 10/10? It is a movie that informs, emotionally moves, incredibly well- paced, and offers the explanation of how & why there is universal hope for the world to achieve democracy & projects this hope in a positive direction in the telling of a tragic true story of systemic repression. Jon Stewart often jokes that his acting career was not stellar. Apparently, his tenure on The Daily Show has transformed him into a director with clarity of vision & purpose as he wrote the screenplay and directed "Rosewater". Please set aside your political predilections and watch this movie as an American valuing freedom & a person seeking to learn about the culture inside Iran. His direction was masterful, and this film was as lucky to find the perfect director, as the director was to find the perfect story. Again, let me stress, there is not a single sentence that can be classified as Republican or Democrat. Put simply, it is an American treasure, and an unforgettable film. It is no small feat to make a story such as this interesting throughout. The timing of the comedic moments are perfect and very funny. I haven't read how much the movie cost to make, and honestly I don't even care. It did the job of a Bruckheimer, or Weinstein movie, so the question is moot. There were no unnecessary shots or scenes & the only thing that might have been added was more detail before the credits about what happened after the story in Iran. It's not often a story with so much tragedy ends up giving one a renewed hope for the future of world civilization, but Jon Stewart, backed by a detailed true story accomplished exactly that. Mesmerizing, and unforgettable, this movie is one of the greatest of all- time. I easily stand by my 10/10 today and 20 years from now. Knox D. Alford, III

I really don't know how else to describe this film. The true story inspired a script of this sort that has success in finding some character rhythms but others that don't come off all that well. Really though, the problem here is in Jon Stewart's directing. At times it gets a bit too showy, too self- congratulatory. You can sort of tell that there's a sort of contradiction of tones happening. oh sure, one expects this sort of a film to be a downer, and in some ways the film has a certain dynamism in it that was probably not expected, but that doesn't make it all that good. It's not bad, but I have no passion for it whatsoever and I do think that Stewart needed to reel himself back in. Gael Garcia Bernal proves to be as strong of a protagonist as ever, though, and it's crazy that it looks like he hasn't aged a bit in ten years.