How is it that a dramatic film starring Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman generates as little buzz as The Railway Man? The adaptation of Eric Lomax's autobiography premiered last year at TIFF to lukewarm response, and the international trailer released around the same time didn't do much to help. But there's no doubt Firth and Kidman make a powerful pair, so perhaps when the film arrives on U.S. shores it'll get a better response.
Directed by Jonathan Teplitzky, the film centers on Lomax who is captured by the Japanese during WWII and forced to endure terrible tortures while working on the brutal Burma-Siam railroad. As he tries to overcome the trauma of what he experienced, his wife (Kidman) lends the support he needs, even as he reconnects with the most vicious torturer (Hiroyuki Sanada) from his past. Jeremy Irvine plays the younger Lomax, with Stellan Skarsgard as an old friend.There's nothing especially wrong with the new trailer other than a general flatness to it, and if it's laboring to find momentum in a 2 1/2 minute tease then the movie surely has problems.
The Railway Man should arrive later this year, but any Oscar hopes it may have once had are long gone.
The Railway Man (Trailer 3) by tvPRIME
