Brilliant and touching

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I have read the book. For me, it was a sentimental journey. A chance, to relive the past, my past, a journey worth re-visiting.This movie, is propaganda. And it is built on the worst type of propaganda, that which revolves around being Politically Correct, while at the same time avoiding any truth. The original book is based on complete tragedy. Only the book can convey to you the reader, the losses that PK felt. This movie is such an insult, I shall always tell people to read the book, and to avoid the movie. Any and all the bare any love to me that they may profess, will honour my wishes. This movie, is based on the book, but in very few ways reflects the book, or it's author.This movie does not reflect the book. This movie, even though it stars such wonderful actors as Morgan Freeman, a man, that I personally love, is not worth anything.Read the book. Avoid the movie.

This movie is controversial as can be deducted from the diverse comments upon it. It is my opinion though that those who commented negatively on this movie have failed to see it in the historical perspective it was meant to show. The 30's and 40's of the previous era are well known for the oppression people all over the world suffered. This movie shows that standing up against that oppression may not seem to work at first, but it will have an effect ... however small. And that effect, that ripple in the pond, will find its way outward. This movie, more than any other I have ever seen, shows that discrimination on skin color is wrong, now matter when ... no matter what.That is the message this movie gives to me and that is the message it should convey. The characters are played convincingly and each has a power of his own. If you just try and see this movie in its historical perspective, you'll see it for the jewel it is.

When Stephen Dorff's character of PK sees the African child reading from the U.S. Declaration of Independence about that all men are created equal, he knew he'd started something. Literacy is always the key to freedom and accessibility to read everything is the second step. The southerners in the slave holding part of the USA knew that well. It was a crime back in the day to teach a black slave to read. In our own country Frederick Douglass knew that well and he counted his education as a first step for freedom for his people.What I liked about The Power of One is that it goes into the history of the Union of South Africa as seen not from a historian, but from the point of view of a growing boy who was of English parentage. The young man who grew up to be Stephen Dorff because he's orphaned as a child has to go to a school for Afrikaans children. Their resentment of English encroachment and victory in the Boer War runs deep. Their ministers in the Dutch Reformed Church preach a brand of Christianity that can now only be found in the USA among white supremacist fringe groups. It wasn't so long ago it was more in the mainstream here, let alone in South Africa.Dorff identifies with the blacks because he's an oppressed minority as well. The film takes us through the late twenties. thirties, and forties in South African history. The year 1948 is a critical one as shown here. The coalition building of Jan Christian Smuts came to an end as his South African Party was voted out of office and the white supremacist Nationalist Party of Daniel Malan was voted in. What was informal before became established law at that point. Of course even then a lot of people of good will in all races living there opposed that policy. It remained in affect until Nelson Mandela was elected president.Young people are shown as the engineers of change in South Africa. Dorff, his friend Dominic Walker, his African boxing rival Alois Moyo and even Fay Masterson whose father is high up in the Nationalist Party are the opponents. All of them give fine performances.The two most well known names in the cast are Sir John Gielgud as Dorff's English headmaster and Morgan Freeman the African who teaches him to box. The first half of the film is a flashback as Dorff's is reciting an autobiographical essay for class which we don't realize until the classroom is shown. He learned to box to combat the unceasing bullying he took from the Afrikaans kids. Freeman gives a wonderful performance and the coda to it was supplied by Dorff when he says that the Afrikaans policeman who beat Freeman to death was later found strung up in an isolated area. One of the kids who bullies Dorff grows up to be Daniel Craig who also becomes a policeman who now have powers greater than they had before. Their confrontation in the end is something to see. As a kid Craig idolized Hitler and as an adult we see how he put those ideas into practice. It's a truly malevolent portrayal of hate, you could tell Mr. Craig had a good career ahead of him.As did Stephen Dorff. He's got a great ear for dialect, right in the tradition of Robert Mitchum. Hard to believe he's an American.For a great picture of South Africa turning a dark corner in its history, I highly recommend The Power of One.

This was an AMAZING movie. I can not believe that I hadn't seen it before today (Oct 6, 2006). This movie made me cry multiple times, and I am NOT one to cry because of a movie. It was SO real, and to think that it was dealing with stuff that happened less than 40 years ago. It deals with the apartheid in South Africa, and how segregation is so horribly wrong. It follows the life of a boy in South Africa, and his struggles by being one of the few English children in the area he grew up. It follows him through many deaths of friends and family. It shows him as he grows up and becomes a man, and takes a stand for what he believes in. If you care about anything, this movie will show it somehow. You really should watch it! I SWEAR that you won't be disappointed!