This is How Movies Should Be Made

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Blistering performances.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Why? hard to explain... not really! Without trying to get your sympathy for my reviews, I will share something not so private: my dad before teaching me how to ride a bicycle or to properly talk, he took me to movies, talked about every actor and director, therefore I love movies, he died 41 years ago, when I was eight years old, and while watching, "Day of the Falcon" I wished he had been sitting next to me, like he did on "Laurence of Arabia".On this times of so much abuse for Especial Effects and CG, a story like "Day of the Falcon" is so well crafted that easily translate to the movie screen, is so refreshing, so "cool" as we say these days, that after the ending I could still feel the magic of my long gone childhood after the matinées with warriors, pirates, horses and men in turbans or hats, dinosaurs and else, and because of that feeling, and magic, I recommend this almost unknown and pretty much, ignored movie.Every actor from the most famous or not, delivers, the photography, the sceneries, everything! Creates the ambiance that every movie should have for us in order to keep on loving films!

Jean-Jacques Annuad's wannabe epic The Day of the Falcon (also known as Black Gold) feature's some of the most bizarre and downright idiotic casting choices ever committed to celluloid and due to this ruins any chance the movie had at being a sweeping tale of love, family and war in the barren lands of early nineteenth century Arabia.The Day of the Falcon is a suitably large scale looking film with a huge budget handed to it by its Saudi Arabian backers but money must have been thrown in the majority at its world spanning cast who look like lost souls in a movie that would've been much more suited casting locals as to not distract from what is essentially a ripe storyline. A Prophet breakout star Tahar Rahim fairs best in the cast but from him it's all horribly downhill. We have a Spaniard (Banderas), a cockney Englishman (Strong) and a clearly Indian (Pinto) filling out the cast of natives. No amount of makeup or costume design can hide the fact that these people are in no way shape or form from this country which really is insulting to both the story and the audiences. These casting mistakes are made all the more hard to swallow when Annaud's film showcases select scenes that make one think they are watching a better movie.Annuad has shown promise behind the camera before with Enemy at the Gates one of the more enjoyable guilty pleasures of the last decade or so and here again proves to have a good eye for the large scale detail, but within the film those scenes are few and far between with a seemingly intense finale playing out far too quickly and characters never truly making a mark on the audience. The film certainly looks pretty in a sandy type of way and the period of history in which the film takes place makes it a more intriguing prospect than it deserves to be but that's in no way a selling point.Day of the Falcon was an almighty flop the world over and a film that has rightfully been passed over by many film lover. It's good to see up and coming actor Tahir Rahim take lead in a picture of this scale and he is a shining light in an otherwise pointless movie that proves to those in the business that casting name actors at the expense of believability is a big mistake.1 and a half miscast foreign actors out of 5 For more movie reviews and opinions check out - www.jordanandeddie.wordpress.com

Director/writer Jean-Jacques Annaud is not a newcomer, in fact, he's the director of such great films as 'The name of the Rose', 'Seven Years in Tibet' and 'Enemy at the Gates', to name a few; so the movie was well worth considering in my opinion. The movie is based the novel 'Arab' by Hans Ruesch, a born storyteller, according to The New York Times Book Review; looking up the life story of Ruesch, I was even more fascinated and thus chose to watch it. It did not hurt a bit that Mark Strong and Freida Pinto were starring in the flick; I like both of them. In the case of Antonio Banderas, he's in so many movies, some I don't care for but others I very much enjoyed (The Skin I live In, Haywire) lately, I don't tend to dismiss his participation as it may be too easy to do.I was not familiar with the lead actor, Tahar Rahim, but if Annaud picked him, it was for good reason. He delivered a splendid performance of his character Prince Auda. That character is a much more likable one then that of Lawrence (in Lawrence of Arabia), both of whom are shown to be historical figures, one, a real person, the other a fictional one. I would not attempt to make comparisons between the two films, that would be ludicrous; but it does not take away the beauty I saw in 'Black Gold' a.k.a. 'Day of the Falcon'.I won't, repeat or write up a new description of the story, as the IMDb full storyline is quite on point; so I refer you to it. I will, however, add that the lead character, Prince Auda is depicted as a unifying force, as was Lawrence, but in a diametrically different way, and that made the whole story stand on its own. Auda is the opposite of brutal, he is considerate, and it takes just as much will and courage to be one as it does the other.Annaud does a fine job of conveying the harshness of the desert life, as well as David Lean did for the classic tale. Thankfully, in 'Black Gold' there is a female character of some significance, that of Princess Leyla, played by Freida Pinto, a stunningly beautiful and also wise princess, daughter of Emir Nesib, played by Antonio Banderas. Auda is one of Sultan Amar's two sons. Amar, played by Mark Strong, is arch-rival of Nesib, and also the smarter of the two, though not one with as much foresight as either his son Auda or Nesib himself. I was most pleased with the development of the story and the final outcome. I hope you too will be.

A beautiful existential film that is unlike most modern spoon-fed reality TV motion pictures, the film addresses core cultural differences in "what is of value"; which goes right to the heart of the World's problems. Yes, the dialog of the main love-interest of the Protagonist comes off in cliché's; but the other woman does not, so I don't think it's the writer. The rest of the dialog is amazing, and over-all the screenplay keeps a Falcon-eyed view of various belief systems at play, portrayed brilliantly by each character, but without judging. I, for one, find this more important than the 'reality' of the airplane or the accents. Story has recently been sacrificed to the god of reality and accuracy, and as the great film critic Pauline Kael said: 'Good Movies are rarely perfect movies." This film had mythological elements to it, and spiritual. I am so happy to have found it among the overwhelming amount of horror, violence, and stupid films lining the shelves of Hollywood.