Day of Wrath (2006)

Powerful

It is a performances centric movie

Awesome Movie

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

I'm not sure where people are coming from when critiquing this movie. One review sounds like a group of frat boys rented it to make fun of and were disappointed that it wasn't funny? It's a costume/period piece about the Spanish inquisition! What are people expecting? Action? Comedy? This movie moves very slowly in parts, but it is simply telling its story. You've got to be patient to watch a movie about the Spanish inquisition in the first place, so be forewarned. Other than that, Lambert gives a good performance, the costumes are excellent. I love the little twists and turns.Is it suspenseful? No. Is it supposed to be? I never got the idea that it was. I guess the bottom line is: What are your expectations of a movie before you watch it? If you go into it with none, then you are a lot better off. This movie doesn't fit a lot of people's expectations, but that doesn't make it a bad movie. In fact, what I liked about it was that it doesn't fit into the normal American movie genres of: action, comedy, buddy movie etc. I was actually pleasantly surprised by the stark beauty of many shots and could accept its low-budget shortcomings because the story and acting were good enough for me to enjoy.

No need to see this film, really. Worst thing in the film is the cut, it's done really bad. I'm not sure if I've ever seen a worse cut. It's horribly fast with horrible rhythm. It's the director's second work and if the first one was as bad as this one, I wonder who let him do it. Well, maybe the ten-year gap between the movies tells something.The most blame probably goes to the script. The characters and scenes are left inexplicably shallow. The director has failed in creating any mood in the film. Most actors seem to overact most of the time, or maybe its just the bad cut than makes it feel that way. The events have gaping unrealistic holes. It's hard to get an idea of the settings of the movie, how big the city is, and so on; I got a picture that the population of the city consisted almost solely of aristocrats and guards. The movie is also littered with anachronisms, such as mentioning separation of church and state and the overacted tenderness towards children, not to mention the stereotypical view of the time period. And why use actors of mainly North-European descent, when the setting is in Spain? I believe Hollywood has a large population of actors of Spanish descent, so why not use them? Same applies to the Jewish characters. Of the major actors, I think only Carmen Marsillach was Spanish, probably none were Jewish.Occasionally, especially towards the end, I could see a tiny hint of an actually good movie. The basic plot is actually not that bad, if you think about it separately from the movie and imagine what kind of movie a decent writer and director could have done out of it. The historical setting is real. I would almost think that this is a bad script based on a decent book. Apparently the director also wrote it himself though.

This movie takes place in Spain during the horrible Spanish Inquisition. Nobles are being murdered horribly and letters are carved into the corpses' chests. The sheriff, a good and decent man (played by Lambert) tries to find out who killed these nobles. The sheriff is met by resistance from the inquisitor and even his own boss (played by Brian Blessed) when he tries to uncover this murder mystery. Eventually, the sheriff realizes that these murders are connected to his family history and he must act quickly to save his life and the lives of his family.I love the look of this film. It is a costume drama and a murder mystery and it takes place during a particularly horrible time in Spain's history.The acting is very good. Congratulations to all the actors in this film, they've really outdid themselves. Christopher Lambert actually does a really decent job in this film and for the first time, I'm watching this guy actually act and not go on auto-pilot. The plot of this film is extremely intriguing and I greatly respect a film that still makes me think after the movie is long over.This is a beautiful looking film and a good mystery, though I must warn some viewers that some of the murders are extremely graphic but it is not gratuitous violence as it is central to the story.Absolutely worth viewing, maybe even worth viewing more than once.

I am definitely not a Christopher Lambert fan ... he doesn't appeal to me as an actor, and I know he was in some TV show that I never watched ... I don't know what one it was, but recall remote control surfing and when I saw his face I changed the channel. I had never watched Highlander series but did so not long ago when someone loaned me their series set and I did a marathon viewing ... I have yet to watch all of the Highlander movies (seems I've not watched the ones with Lambert in them). Let's face it, he's definitely not Adrian Paul.Setting aside my dislike for this particular actor, I rented this movie and liked it more than the average. It was refreshing. I didn't know anything about the movie other than what it said on the DVD cover jacket, so I didn't have any grand expectation(s), but figured there would be tin-tan sounding sword fights.The one thing that disappointed me with the DVD was the limitations set forth regarding the special features. I would have liked some commentary regarding the period that this movie was set around. I am weary of a full feature movie overlayed with a commentary by someone and wish Mollywood would grasp that I'm not the only soul disliking this kind of "special feature." If I watch the movie, I'm sure as heck not gonna sit thru and watch it again with someone hawking away with comments ... jeez, break it into a short special feature! Considering the nature of the story/topic, I feel that more insight of the era/period in the special features to satisfy the cultural curiosity for viewers would have helped push up ratings a bit. After all, there is much curiosity regarding these dark ages that spanned many centuries that ... well, elementary schoolbooks back in the 50's and 60's most certainly didn't cover much and were a tad censored for kids being taught such "history." Even without a special feature giving more historical cultural aspects of the period, the movie was well done. There were areas that were a bit shoddy/hokey, but considering this had to have been a low budget movie, such bits were curbed short and made forgivable. I just wish someone would give Lambert a good haircut/hairstyle and more acting lessons. Even Nicolas Cage's hair is so bad in Valley Girl, it's a wonder how he got the girl and audience appeal, but he's got camera charm and knows how to act ... and he's far from being handsome. Perhaps I just can't get past Lambert's appearance, dunno, but this movie would have gotten a higher rating if another actor had been cast.I found that the topic and storyline for this movie to be refreshingly and appealingly new (at least for me). I haven't seen many movies done in this period and I am curious to know if this movie used historical data (again the missing link with a GOOD, SHORT special feature commentary). So, my rating here is on the merit of the well put together story and theme and if some remake is done years down the road, hopefully a "better" actor is chosen for the main role. Just so you understand here further is I really like Lance Henriksen as an actor, but the movie Pirates of Treasure Island was so bad I rooted for the bugs to eat everyone to end the movie fast! To me, that movie is the WORST dog of the year thus far that I've rented. So, just because I like or dislike an actor does not mean I place my merits in rating a movie .. unless the entire cast, acting, costumes, story and so forth are so dreadfully intolerable to view an entire movie as was Pirates of Treasure Island.I recommend this movie for renting and intriguingly good viewing. Separate it from Da Vinci Code (I've not seen it or know anything about it either, but read a comment that compared it), so to give this movie fairness, I've got to say that I've not been influenced by any other measurable movie at this time.