Attack on Darfur (2009)

One of my all time favorites.

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

DARFUR is an attempt by German exploitation film director Uwe Boll to do something a bit different from his usual horror pictures and video game adaptations. This one looks at the humanitarian crisis in Sudan and explores some of the atrocities carried out on innocent villagers by some truly sadistic characters.It's pretty simplistic stuff with Boll getting hold of a recognisable cast (most of whom have previously appeared in Boll movies) and then taking them on a tour of horror. Some reviewers have complained about the shaky camera-work but it honestly didn't bother me, but the eventual scenes of the atrocities did. Not that I was awed or disturbed by the violence here; instead, it soon becomes all too apparent that Boll is merely emulating similar scenes in the likes of BLOOD DIAMOND, THE KILLING FIELDS, and in particular RAMBO which seems to be the main reference point.It's all very numbing and oddly irrelevant; the viewer is never really caught up in the events which are rather repetitive and even a bit comic book style. Boll also makes the mistake of building his central characters early on and then giving them nothing to do. The likes of Billy Zane, Edward Furlong, Hakeem Kae-Kazim, Matt Frewer, and David O'Hara just have to react to the violence and that's it. Some of the acting is very wooden too - I'm looking at you, Kristanna Loken.

This is my review on Uwe Bolls movie Darfur. If you guys know anything about Uwe Boll he uses shock moments to make a movie. Let me say that this is the first thing wrong with Bolls movies. He fills the movie with blood and gore and 0 story line and 0 character development. The only reason I watched this was because i read many reviews on here that said it was good.This movie is about American reporters who go to Darfur to document the atrocities being done to the people. They go to a small village and soon make friends with the towns people. As they are leaving they see a group of arabs who are going to the village (most likely to wipe it out) some try to play hero as others go back to camp.This movie is just absolutely awful. There is zero character development and of course for Uwe Bolls common style of a shaking camera that is constantly moving around. You can never fully tell whats going on in the picture. It makes the movie unwatchable. The only reason for the 3 stars was because it did what it intended to do. It does shock and awe at some points but if your looking for gore skip this. 20 mins of gore 70 mins of bore. Skip this one folks

Hard to believe this was directed by the same man who brought us House Of The Dead and the execrable Alone In The Dark. However, it does seem that the previously very estimable Herr Boll is building himself a tidy portfolio of "issue" films to accompany his lacklustre video game adaptations and dreadful "comedies". Using a growing company of relatively accomplished players (Jurgen Prochnow, Edward Furlong, Kristanna Loken, Michael Pare, Matt Frewer)Prior to this film, I had only seen one of his issue films. Heart Of America, a take on American school violence, it was ambitious but perhaps overreaching. Clunky performances (Brendan Fletcher, excepted), odd shot choices and an ambling real-time screenplay.It also hugely oversimplified and misunderstood the motivations of the Columbine killers, if they were the inspiration (and considering lead actor Michael Belyea's remarkable physical resemblance to Eric Harris, it's a fair conclusion that it must have been).Respect for the attempt, nothing more. Certainly nothing that prepared me for Darfur.Don't be fooled by the advertising or its alternate title, this isn't Billy Zane and the Terminatrix save Africa. Darfur is a powerful, horrible, brutal, gut punch of a film that brings to life the very real and very recent horrors committed during the ongoing Afro-Arab conflict.There is little in the way of plot, a group of British and American journalists and a Scandinavian aid worker are escorted by a consignment of African Union soldiers, there only in a peacekeeping capacity.They are taken to a local village where through speaking to the locals they learn of the atrocities that have been suffered. The villagers speak in hushed tones of mass executions, rape with the threat of AIDS and abduction. Whispered atrocities that will soon become a vivid reality.A consignment of Janjaweed approach the village and although initially confronted by the westerners and the AU force, it is all too apparent that they are impotent in the face of the warmongers, outnumbered and with no mandate to engage.Forced to retreat and failing in their attempt to pry a small glimmer of hope from this awful situation, one of the group breaks on the journey away from the village and demands to be allowed to return to the scene of the slaughter. To what end, only he knows but he knows that he cannot live the rest of his life knowing that he turned his back and ran away (it is telling that the opening line of dialogue in the film is an American cameraman beseeching for someone to tell him how he can ever go home again – he is alive to tell the tale but at what cost to his psyche and soul?).There could be a debate about whether Boll's take on this is exploitative, essentially making a horror film about a real life situation – accusations that could levelled fairly reasonably at movies like Men Behind The Sun and Nanking Massacre (I've yet to view Boll's take on WW2 atrocities with Auschwitz). I fall on the side of nay in this metaphorical debate that I've just invented, the opening period of the film is at pains to paint the villagers as human beings and the atrocities depicted follow those documented by reporters who braved the region albeit using the device of a single village as a microcosm for the genocide.If there is a criticism, it is that the politics, racism and historical conflict that have lead to this are ignored almost completely. The Janjaweed are presented as nothing more than faceless killers lead by a charismatic Commander (an excellent though underused Sammy Sheik)who could have wandered in from any number of action movies.Whether the film should address these issues is open to debate. The film does not blink away from the atrocities – they are depicted frankly and brutally – women are raped and shot, mass executions are undertaken by machine gun, babies are crushed and impaled, those deemed not worthy of a bullet are hacked to death with machetes.At no point, though, does this feel like an attempt to titillate the viewer with violence, it presents itself to bludgeon and sicken the viewer with its sustained violence for over half of the films running time, there is no attempt to comfort the viewer. This is how it is. This is what the TV news means when it uses the euphemism "humanitarian crisis".How do you feel about it? What are you going to do about it?Despite a fairly unrealistic redemptive coda, the westerners attempts to intervene acts as a metaphor for the West's historically clumsy and misguided attempts to intervene in African politics: impotent and inept, only caring when its too late. The intervention itself ends savagely also: all are equal in the eyes of genocide. An aside: interestingly I'd also recently watched Adam Curtis' excellent documentary All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace which, amongst other things, explores the horrific results of America's intervention in the Congo and the Belgian governments' inextricable links to the genocide in Rwanda. Both of these were brought to mind during the westerner's ultimate confrontation with the Janjaweed.It may well be that the film is simply as impotent a howl of tragic, existential fury as its opening line. How can any of us go home again knowing what is going on and doing little or nothing to stop it?A final nod to David O'Hara, as excellent as always. Salute, Sir!One thing is for sure though, you can't dis Uwe Boll any more. He's done more than you have.Chapeau, Herr Boll, Chapeau.

You people amaze me.Because someone films a woman getting bludgeoned to death with a hammer in unflinching detail (as Boll has done in a recent film) does not mean he's making some eloquent statement on violence, or shows atrocity in Darfur, does not mean he cares anything about Darfur, or is a humanitarian, particularly if the film is nothing more than a showcase for horrible actions, with no real moral compass.It's an exploitation film people. He's using a serious topic to feed a ravenous, hungry, gore obsessed film audience, their shock and awe. He's giving you your 'horror' movie.Are the profits to this movie going to a NP working in the region such as Okfam? Did it spur you to donate money? Is there a plea to call your congress person.It's all but a snuff film, it is true pornography. Violence only for violence's sake. And you praise him for it? And then incite others to see it, as if you're leading some humanitarian charge? Be honest.Just a little while, with yourself... be honest You are titillated.If you really want a film about the civil wars ravaging Central Africa, one of the best is DARESALAM by Issa Serge Coelo, filmed in 2000, it's a masterful film, that gives a surprising amount of depth to the fighting, specifically in Chad, but its truths resonate throughout the continent.And beyond.However perhaps all you want to see is the money shots. Perhaps all you want to see is people suffer and die.You sad hypocrites.He's feeding your need, for gore. Don't make anything more of it than that. You want to know the situation in Darfur, there are lots of non-profits out there that will inform you, and could put your money to better use, than you renting or buying a DVD filled with just people's suffering. Than faces of death.Our fictions have to spur us toward some higher calling, some higher ideals, something not unlike hope, Because if our fictions don't make that leap toward hope, towards a better way, our facts never will.If all our fictions can offer us, is to profit in the horror of our facts, than we become conspirators in those acts. Confused, gibbering applauders of the deeds.You want do something about Darfur. Join Oxfam, or your NP of choice, and give. But don't praise an exploitation movie and director, and think you've done anything... but sully your soul.