Monday, January 7, 2008

TV Movies: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

I was disappointed by this 2007 entry into the otherwise stellar portfolio that is HBO films. The pacing was extremely slow, and I expected it to pick up somewhere along the way, but it just kept going slowly and then sort of suddenly wrapped itself up after about two hours and ten minutes. The story is an important one, but the execution is nothing more than decent. All the characters enunciate all the words to make them seem more important, but all in all this is simple a collage of speeches and half-hearted battle scenes. The performances are in line with the film, and I see no reason that Aidan Quinn, August Schellenberg, and Anna Paquin all deserved Emmy nominations or why Adam Beach got a Golden Globe nomination. Decent actors, sure, but this is not their finest work. The film certainly did not merit its victory in the Made-for-TV Movie Emmy category over HBO’s vastly superior TV movie “Longford”. This one may have historical significance, but I cannot imagine I will remember it a week from now.

C+

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