I saw the director's short film which was not good but at least interesting and much better than this full-length movie "Bosque de sombras". Gary Oldman is obviously the only star in this movie but contrary to what the other reviewer said, I believed the Spanish cast was good. It was interesting to hear Gary Oldman speak some Spanish and I give this movie 3 stars because of Aitana Sanchez-Gijon and him.
Aitana Sanchez-Gijon, who is an excellent Spanish actress that I last watched in "The Machinist" with Christian Bale and was also in other English language movies like "A Walk in the clouds" plays Gary Oldman's wife. She can express mystery and emotion without saying any dialogue. I think she is one of the best but underrated Spanish actresses today. Lluís Homar was brilliant, in my opinion, and also the little girl.
I was mixed about Paddy Considine. I think he is a good actor but next to Gary Oldman, he was less interesting. In "Cinderella man" with Russel Crowe, he was excellent and also in "In America," but in this movie, he was only interesting when he was not in a scene with Gary Oldman but in scenes with the other actors, he steals every scene. I think that shows how strong Gary Oldman is that brilliant actors like Considine seem to fade next to him.
This movie is the first English language movie for Virginie Ledoyen since "The Beach" and I think it is fair to say that she will always be known as the girl from "The Beach" because she is a bland and boring actress. Even in french films she is dull because she lacks the range that other actresses her age have. In this movie, she is not at all convincing as her character. She "acts" better in her 30-second adverts for L'Oréal.
The biggest problem of this movie is the writing and the directing. Serra and his co-writer lack the skill in writing a coherent and original scénario. Stealing from other movies was a bad idea. There should have been more development in this to make it a real movie. Also, Serra uses the camera techniques of 70's directors which is OK at first but when he does this all the time it is distracting and does not serve any purpose except style. We all know it is set in the 70's but the directing should always be related to the story because style is cheap and easy and anyone who works only on style with no script should just direct commercials and music videos. Skip this movie and rent "Straw dogs" instead.
