The War Zone (1999)

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

As I progressed through this movie I was caught off guard by some very ugly scenes . I knew the subject of incest could be awkward and harrowing but this movie seemed to celebrate and languish in the acts . The bleak landscape was only matched by the not so great murmurings of Mr Winstone . The movie did not touch on the perpetrators reasons or history ,etc for doing such things but rather made victims of its viewers ; forcing us to participate/ witness these horrific acts . It wasn't a " deep " movie with complicated , captivating characters or story lines , It was an irresponsible , irrelevant piece of movie making that limped on to find a story to tell. Next time Tim Roth feels like producing something like this , he should remember he's in the " entertainment " industry . A horrible movie that should never have been made .

English actor and director Tim Roth's feature film debut which was written by British author and screenwriter Alexander Stuart, is an adaptation of a novel by Alexander Stuart from 1989. It premiered in the Premieres section at the 15th Sundance Film Festival in 1999, was screened in the Panorama section at the 49th Berlin International Film Festival in 1999, was shot on location in London and the county of North Devon in England and is a United Kingdom-Italy co-production which was produced by producers Sarah Radcliffe and Dixie Linder. It tells the story about a boy named Tom who moves from London, England to a remote house by the coast in Devon with his father, pregnant mother and older sister named Jessie. Finely and precisely directed by British filmmaker Tim Roth, this quietly paced fictional tale which is narrated from multiple viewpoints though mostly from the main character's point of view, draws a gripping and unsettling portrayal of a young man's relationship with his sister and how everything changes when he begins to suspect that their father is molesting her. While notable for it's naturalistic milieu depictions, sterling cinematography by Northern Irish cinematographer Seamus McGarvey and fine production design by Australian production designer Michael Carlin, this character-driven and dialog-driven coming-of-age story depicts a reflective study of character and contains an efficient score by composer Simone Boswell. This minimalistic, atmospheric and unsentimental psychological drama about incest which is set during a spring on the countryside in South West England in the late 20th century, is impelled and reinforced by it's cogent narrative structure, substantial character development, subtle continuity and the understated and poignant acting performances by English actor Ray Winstone, English actress Tilda Swinton and British actress Lara Belmont and British actor Freddie Cunliffe in their debut feature film roles. An authentic, graphic and prominent directorial debut from the late 1990s which gained, among several other awards, the European Discovery Award Tim Roth at the 12th European Film Awards in 1999.

I know that incest and sexual abuse within families is a MAJOR problem, seemingly in all societies. And I believe it could be a good or meaningful topic for a movie.... but this is not it. This film is so uniquely, surrealistically dismal and disgusting in the events portrayed, that it became more about how it was shown and could it be shockingly, relentlessly depressing, not a credible depiction of the way this problem exists within families. Therefore, it became exploitive of this issue rather than meaningful.Besides the issue of the molesting father, we get a gratuitous, shocking car crash... relevance to the story: zip! We get all sorts of female nudity around the house, including long shots of the teenage daughter's breasts while in discussion. Relevance: zip! Including the silly concept of a girl sleeping naked under a single blanket in an old house in England's winter...why? Just so the blanket could be shockingly pulled away, of course. Add to all this the Euro style of filming where tight shots linger on barely lit sad faces for silent minutes at a time. It was like the director just wanted to practice everything you might do in a Eurotrash horror movie, but give it a topic that might propel him into the realm of "meaningful". I'm not buying it. And WARNING: Do NOT bring this home for the family thinking you are going to see something enlightening about normal family issues. This is a rough, ugly, sad ride thru some real prurient exploitation.

If you have seen how many comments are saying "The best movie of the 90's" (and such) and how many are saying"This is a dull/boring story" you can begin to thinking "Wow, this should be a great film! How many controversy about it". But it is wrong, the movie is not controversy, just boring.Well, for me was difficult to concentrate on the story, I confess. It is very straight forward one, I was just wondering what should be happening even more in the next 50, 30, 10 minutes. You just know what happens on the end from the very beginning. A classical Oedipus story, but told on a very miserable way. You know at every moment what'll follow, I have read here "Sudden end". Oh, really? But the main drawback of the film is that it fails on logic and background of the characters. Why they are acting in such a way? It is not enough to say "Hey, I am bad!" but (s)he have to imply some secret, obscure menace. Nothing of it! The characters seem to be some harmless persons, OK, they could be somehow, too; but nevertheless they should not be not innocent at last.The dad delivers some very naive explanation for his outrages, rather freaky — not implausible, but like some monotone reading from a psychological book.Actually the movie suggests that what happen doesn't really happen and it is just an imaginary world of the protagonists. Well, that could be interesting if it is made in a proper way. Instead, the movie is so poor directed that what happen is rather unimportant. The theme is difficult, no doubt, but it is difficult because it must be convincing.I think the debut of Tim Roth will remain his last movie as filmmaker and it should be the right answer of the disaster.