Waste of time

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

This is one of those great epic movies that for mysterious reasons are never shown on TV and are pretty much forgotten / unknown by the general public. It manages to mix successfully a love story with its turbulent historical background, in a way that I found even more convincing and less sentimental than Doctor Zhivago.I had the chance to watch it again after many years and I was truly surprised by how good it still is. It tells the story of John Reed - one of the very few foreigners buried in the Kremlin - and his turbulent relation with Louise Bryant. Particularly moving are the interviews with the "witnesses" that form the backbone of the movie. These people were Reed and Bryant's contemporaries, all in their late 70s/early 80s when the movie was shot, and some admit candidly to hardly remember Reed and Bryant.The movie starts with some witnesses speaking and then we are shown Reed and Bryant's first, awkward meeting, while Bryant was still married to her first husband. Soon the two move together in New York, while the anti-war movement is campaigning against the US entering WWI.Reed had already an adventurous past as field journalist and decided that WWI was a capitalistic war. He was intrigued by the Russian events in 1917 and managed to be in Moscow during the turbulent days of the Bolshevik revolution. Bryant - who had married him in the meanwhile - was with him. They both wrote books about those adventurous days.Back in the US the couple split up, with Reed wanting to be more involved with the Communist party and Bryant not so keen. There were also infidelities on both sides, hers with Eugene O'Neill. It was quite moving to see young Keaton and Nicholson playing Bryant and O'Neill. It made me think of their uneasy romance in "Something's got to give"...Anyway, Reed ends up in Russia again in 1919 and then imprisoned in Finland for wanting to leave Russia. Bryant decides to help him and starts an epically dangerous journey. In the meantime, Reed has been freed and is forced to campaign in the USSR, while his health is slowly deteriorating. When the two finally meet at Moscow station, you have a truly moving moment, not exploited in any sugary, sentimental way. The bitter end is however around the corner.Definitely Beatty best work, both as an actor and as a director - for which he got a well deserved Oscar. Keaton also deserved it, for her portrayal of Bryant. She was nominated but the Oscar for leading actress went to Katharine Hepburn. In the same year the other contenders were Streep and Sarandon - some fierce competition, not like nowadays.... The movie was robbed from winning best picture by the more conventional "Chariots of fire".

This well-crafted work is probably hobbled by appealing only to a limited audience. The early 20th century is an era that doesn't resonate widely today but it was a tumultuous period that inspired the heights of inspiration and the depths of fear. This film recreates that atmosphere quite well.The Bolshevik Revolution was in itself one of the most extraordinary events in human history. The geopolitical conditions, political ideologies and remarkable personalities that drove it are fascinating to students of many different disciplines. Warren Beatty put it all together with near genius and tossed in a pretty compelling romantic angle as a bonus.The witnesses were amazing. I saw this when it initially was released and had no idea who many of them were and those I did recognize I thought had been long dead. Their first-hand experiences brought a relatively arcane subject to real life.It is a long film and if the subject matter doesn't interest the viewer I can see how it could feel interminable. But from the point of quality cinema it's hard to find a lot to criticize.

British playwright Trevor Griffiths who co-wrote Reds was asked by a journalist in 1990 who he hated? His answer was anyone considering voting for the British Conservative Party in the next election. No doubting of his socialist convictions.However what about Lothario Warren Beatty? This actor/writer/director/producer was better known for his sexual conquests than leftist politics although he did take time out to campaign for George McGovern for the 1972 Presidential Elections. However Beatty is regarded as a typical liberal Hollywood millionaire. Griffiths is not and maybe it is him who gives the film a political centre. I can certainly see in scenes where there are endless arguments between various factions of the left and the cod bureaucracy that it is Griffiths would have had first hand knowledge with his involvement in left wing politics of 1970s Britain. Goodness knows I encountered it in the 1980s.Reds was a long held labour of love for him and this film bagged him a Best Director Oscar. You need a strong constitution to watch Reds, it clocks in at 194 minutes and although it is an epic, frankly David Lean probably did not lose any sleep over this movie and that his own epics might get downgraded and Richard Attenborough would go on to show a year later what a real epic should look like.Reds covers the life of journalist John Reed (Warren Beatty) and his relationship with socialite Louise Bryant (Diane Keaton) from their first meeting, their involvement with the American left movement to Reed's final days in post revolutionary Russia when he is gravely ill and after he became famous for writing the best known account of the Russian Revolution. Bryant was married to someone else when they first met and afterwards has a complex relationship with playwright Eugene O'Neill (Jack Nicholson) the only (cynical) character who sees through the fog of romantic socialism the others are so enamoured with.To give the movie authenticity the film is interspersed with interviews from surviving witnesses who knew the people involved or were around the time period. This lends the film a documentary setting and for the time was an unusual narrative device. Something that was parodied later by Woody Allen in Zelig, a former lover of Keaton before Beatty became involved with her.The problem with the film is it's trying to do too much. It is a tragedy, it is a romance, a globe-trotting political adventure, a growing disillusionment of the Russian revolution and the efforts to export the revolutionary ideals to the USA. Beatty has bit off more than he could chew here. Actors flit in and out without establishing much of a presence such as Gene Hackman.Beatty should had jettisoned some of the story strands and unleashed a tighter film. Of course we later realised that the aftermath of Russian Revolution did not install a socialist utopia and you feel the film tries to but does not always honestly address this.This film was released in the year when Ronald Reagan became President and America entered an economic shift to the right with policies I daresay laid the foundations of the financial meltdown of 2008. It's a radical but flawed film which you do not expect to be made by a major film corporation.

Anyone who has actually read the book knows that this film addresses perhaps .01% of what transpired and captured in great detail of the Russian revolution. Decidedly the POV represents a NYC based Harvard educated journalist and requires bouquets of lilies and Steven banging ivories ragtime style...Agonizing three hours with too much time spent on Keatons 1981 frizz hairstyle, eye lined gazes and inconsequential interactions.... Why would Warren tackle such a propitious project culminating in weak story lines and limited perspectives... almost as if he lost confidence in this project, resorting to mainstream maneuvers to keep an audience entertained, complete failure, almost...Appreciate the attempt to cover such a grand momentous event, however the interviews of witnesses were not value added with no names, party affiliation, or title, they could be anyone and seemed such...Greatly admire Warren and Diane as actors, Maureen and Jack stole every scene and were underutilized... This film was a great disappointment, tried to watch a third time to verify these sentiments but could not get past another 10mins... sigh, had a lot of potential!