2013-08-14
N/A
122 min
In the 16th century in the Cévennes, a horse dealer by the name of Michael Kohlhaas leads a happy and prosperous family life. When a lord treats him unjustly, this pious, upstanding man raises an army and puts the country to fire and sword in order to have his rights restored.
It's a good film, even though it could've been done far greater.
This does make for a quite pleasant two hours, it's a simple story and portrayed it quite an understated and straightforward way. While that is a positive, it is actually also a negative in a weird sorta way. As much as I enjoyed it, I still wanted much more from it; and I feel like it had greater in its locker.
Mads Mikkelsen as Michael Kohlhaas (apparently loosely based on real life Hans Kohlhase) is great casting and Mikkelsen puts in a performance of quality, though I personally believe a more commanding showing would've elevated the movie higher... but that's minor, as less in fairness still would work either way. The support cast are solid.
Two other parts that could've made this 2013 release stronger are the dialogue and the music. For the former, none of the conversations or speeches struck a memorable cord. For the latter, I wanted a proper movie score throughout as I think it would've suited things onscreen perfectly; thankfully, we do get <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZajZdQA8RR8" rel="nofollow">a great piece of music</a> at the end at least.
All in all, <em>'Age of Uprising: The Legend of Michael Kohlhaas'</em> could've went up a few gears but what's there is still a good watch in my opinion.
