Movie Week - Cold Mountain

I am not much of a reader.  I purchase maybe one book a year and I usually don’t read it.  Case in point; I picked up Jay-Z’s Decoded when it was released and never got around to reading it. 

So the whole idea of a film being based on a book, isn’t really a selling point for me.  Maybe if it’s based on a comic book, I might check it out.  But I guess I’m not the biggest fan of adaptations. 

Cold Mountain is an adaptation. 

Cold Mountain had a couple strikes against it going in.  First off, it’s terribly long.  Like dreadfully long.  Like, the Civil War plays out in real time, long.  Secondly, I’m not terribly big on Civil War period pieces. 

So, why was I watching Cold Mountain?  Mainly for Philip Seymour Hoffman.  His untimely death is probably the death that affected me the most since Phil Hartman’s.  I really just wanted to watch as much of his work as I could. 

Still, those first two hurdles keep Cold Mountain sitting the queue for months. 

Once I finally got into it, I found more flaws.  A Civil War flick about the Confederacy that barely addresses slavery and ignores slaves?  Swell.  A central love story that I had zero interest in?  Check. 

On the plus side the story keeps moving.  We get introduced to a ton of supporting characters played by some familiar faces.  It’s fun to see them parade through the film, popping in to say “hi” and then making their exit. 

Honestly, apart from Hoffman the only bright spot in the film is Charlie Hunnam’s Bosie.  I’m not the biggest fan of Hunnam, but his twisted albino is a ton of fun and you can’t turn away whenever he’s on the screen.  It’s also an example of the best American accent Hunnam’s ever had.

But I can’t decide if I’ve latched onto Hunnam’s portrayed of Bosie because I genuinely enjoyed or because Cold Mountain was so painful that I had to find some sort of silver lining to the whole experience.  I guess that’s a question for the ages. 

Cold Mountain is not worth your time.  I mean unless you’re trying to torture someone, in which case you should definitely consider Cold Mountain.