Don't Believe the Hype

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

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.

Since 1988 and the war continues and stinks of genocide. It has taken so many thousand lives before any kind of intervention can be made. Why do the Arabs want the Africans wiped out? Why does Janjaweed think raping and killing or butchering is the best way to get their land back? When did they loose it? Why kill? I have read but not scene the killings and this film made me wake and say something needs to be done and if I can help in any way I will. No journalist's voice is loud enough, no victim's cry is loud enough, no AU soldier's petition is loud enough. The guns and power remain with the Janjaweed, we need all the voices in the world to make them hear us and stop, just stop this inhumane war. Save Darfur and various international organizations are trying their best, I wish it was enough. I can only hope and pray.

The sickeningly sad lack of the west coming to the defense of the Darfur region of Sudan is an immensely important story that must to be told in as many EFFECTIVE ways as possible. But "Attack On Darfur" was a poor implementation of such an effort. It gets the point across (which is important), but sadly, in a pathetic way that's all it does and it does it so poorly. It could have been a vehicle with a much bigger and much more important and "indelibly imprinted on your mind" message. But for that simple but important goal, Attack On Darfur failed miserably. How many times have we seen a movie which left an indelible imprint on our minds? "Attack On Darfur" completely missed a chance to, without a lot of effort, create an incredibly POWERFUL message which is what the Darfur story needs. The west has never really come to the rescue of Darfur and the UN has been embarrassingly absent.Good actors like Billy Zane, Matt Frewer and Kristanna Loken did their parts and did them well. The brutality and genocide of Darfur are displayed repeatedly. But this movie isn't seamlessly put together in a moving story that people unfamiliar with Darfur would never forget. It really wasn't well thought out. The creators figured to capitalize by creating a bunch of easy to create and shocking scenes but never considered making a final product for which the world would finally pay attention and notice. While many scenes of what happened are portrayed and they help get across the image of the severe brutality and extremely severe inhumane actions that occurred while the world sat back and looked the other way. The movie doesn't even try to leave a lasting impact on the viewer. Not in the way that it should and easily could have.The actors do a great job showing the frustration of the journalists with what they see and the fact that the UN and the rest of the world are moving too slowly (if at all) to help the Darfur victims. The journalists are torn between keeping journalistic impartiality and the possibility that they may be able to help prevent some insidious actions. There are many sad moments, but something didn't pull this movie together the way a movie with a good message should have. The story is disturbing and the extreme evils of the Janjaweed militia are exposed. But why didn't the civilized world do something? ANYTHING?? There are many terrific scenes which portray the horror and emotional sadness experienced, but "Attack On Darfur" wasn't as good or have the emotional investment that it could or should have been (so in that regard it was a pathetic flop). Don't get me wrong, there are moving moments and an important message is told. But it was horribly told. I've seen so many better portrayals of lesser important subjects. Why couldn't the director, writer, producer and whoever else have just spent a little time trying to think how to make this movie a success? I don't know if it was the direction, the writing or what. This just wasn't as good as it could and SHOULD have been. It came across as a flat, half hearted, cheap attempt to cash in on the image of a horrible genocide that occurred in Darfur.This movie was such an important opportunity to help portray the disgraceful inaction of the UN, the west and even the African Union. And this movie simply became a cheap dysfunctional attempt at a serious topic. So I was very disappointed. The makers of this movie should be embarrassed at the way this was put together. They decided to go cheap and WASTED good acting and the chance to have an IMPORTANT say on an incredibly sad indictment of "modern civilization" in their lack of effort to come to the rescue of the needy in Darfur. As far as I'm concerned, the makers of this movie failed just as badly as the UN, African Union and the rest of the west.

This is my 4th Uwe Boll film review. I've slated the guy in the past - and rightly so - for some of the atrocious and bad films he's made. I gave up at one point watching his films hoping he'd get better....but, as my last review about 'Rampage' stated, Uwe had made something that wasn't complete rubbish and was actually entertaining. Whilst not converting me from a hater, this did give me an open mind to any future works. Which leads us to Darfur.This film can't be called entertaining. It wasn't made to entertain but rather to raise awareness and send a message to people about the atrocities happening in Darfur. I for one had heard of Darfur in the news but knew nothing in detail until looking into to it thanks to this film.This is simply Uwe's best film to date. This is a powerful, gritty, 'in your face' piece of cinema about the situation in Darfur. There is no happiness, no Hollywood ending. I've never found myself so angry and frustrated whilst watching a film. I don't want to watch it again - not because it's not good but because it's not nice to watch. You will feel uncomfortable and rightly so....and herein lies what makes this film very good - it will illicit emotion from you with it's non-sugar coated story telling.My only complaint....and a common one when watching Boll films....is the hand held camera. I don't mind it's use but still Uwe overkills this method. Too much shaking makes little sense.I thought the way this film was made - barely any scripting, the production values - was excellent. So, bravo to you Mr Boll. I think you should step away from video game adaptations and work on original projects as I think when you do this, you can actually show that you are a good film maker.