The Way Back

It's 1940, and Stalin is a bastard.

In particular, he's recently bagsied half of Poland and is now deporting blameless citizens of Poland to work camps in Siberia.

One such unfortunate is a chap called Janusz, who's banged up for being a spy, the Russians having tortured his wife into informing on him. He ends up, as I say, in Siberian gulag, where he's told that the walls, guards, barbed wire and dogs are just the icing on the cake; escape from the camp, and Siberia will kill you. Despite this, he, a group of other Polish guys, an older American guy, and a Russian convict are determined to try. Their trek takes them through Siberia, Mongolia and Tibet to India, where the Polish guys, with apparently typical wartime brio and vim intend to join up with the British army with the objective of killing Russians.

So, they walk.

And that's basically it.

Sorry to sound dismissive, but there it is. Now obviously, there's more to it than that. It's the story of a disparate group of men who barely know each other and who initially see each other only as means for their own escape and survival, and who come to be comrades and friends in appalling circumstances. But they do this while walking, and not much other than walking. Over some of the least hospitable terrain in the world, given. But walking.

This, then, is a story that's very much about the people, and very much one of grim determination. It's beautifully shot, and while inhospitable, there's a lot of beautiful scenery to behold. The acting is top notch; the lead is Jim Sturgess, who plays it with a lot of charm and charisma, as a man practically made of willpower who drags the rest together, and along with him. Ed Harris plays the American, a broken man torn between accepting the Gulag as his just punishment, and escaping in order to defy the Russians. Colin Farrell is excellent as a weaselly rat of a man, escaping purely because he's pissed off some violent men in the camp.

So, it's all very watchable characterisation, and I couldn't honestly say there was any particular part of it that wasn't a great bit of cinema. It's just that the film is a string of very similar great bits of cinema.

Sadly, as this was the case, my brain kind of wandered during the thing, and I reflected on three things:
1) If they'd had Ray Mears with them, they'd probably have had a really nice time.
2) During the wilderness and desert bits, I was expecting the Top Gear team to bowl past in a series of 4x4 vehicles that they'd each bought for less than £1000.
3) If you watch this film backwards, you have The Man Who Would Be King. Only Sean Connery and Michael Caine managed to become Kings of Kafiristan.

But such frivolity does the gravity of the story (apparently based on an allegedly true story of disputed veracity) an injustice. But I maintain that it's ultimately the film's fault for allowing your mind to wander.