War Flowers (2012) Reviews

• More like a college level play than a movie.

  emeryheuermann2013-11-23

  This movie is so slow! Dialogue is stiff as well as actors movements. The guy with one leg was the best actor of them all. Tom Beringer must have needed some quick cash to do this movie and even his performance was below par. and Christina Ricci, . .. couldn't tell she is a professional actor if judging by her acting skills in this movie. Civil War period costumes were okay but make up and false mustaches were so laughable. That's when I knew we were in trouble but we did struggle thru the entire movie. At the conclusion, we couldn't figure out if it was a high end collegiate play or a made for TV movie. And the magic stars, what was that all about? Bottom line: Don't waste 100 minutes of your life on this stinker.

• A mistake

  jeff-finley012013-08-01

  We saw that this movie starred Christina Ricci and Tom Berenger and figured it had to be decent. Nope. Wrong. Not close. My wife gave it a "C" which was generous; I deemed it a mistake. I could not tell whether the editing was intentional to make it look like it was a t.v. movie, or just bad. The acting was wooden, the story line weak, and the special effects not special nor effective. The story, at its simplest, is about a Civil War wife who is at home waiting for the return of her Confederate sergeant husband. While waiting, with occasional skirmishes going on around her house (which she inexplicably runs through the middle of while dragging her little girl behind her) she discovers a seriously wounded Yankee soldier in her basement. No surprise in that she nurses him back to health. And for no reason, other than perhaps loneliness (which we are forced to guess)she falls in love with the Yankee. There is no heartfelt discussion, no longing looks, no kindnesses from Yankee to his Florence Nightingale, nor even to her daughter. The southern accents are not just contrived, but painful to the ear. There is an occasional, intentional blurring of the scene which almost made me believe that maybe there was supposed to be some type of magic going on (accompanied by the presence of little stars whirring about- literally). However, it was such an odd occurrence, and without any explanation that it just added to the bizarre nature of the movie. The strongest acting comes from the gentleman that plays the one-legged lecherous drunk. Saddled with a ridiculous set of false teeth, he nevertheless seemed excited to be in the movie. Second to the one- legged man was the teddy bear, who played his role well. Christina Ricci, who is talented, simply looked trapped. (And by the way, if you are going to have the heroine make threatening gestures with a "cap and ball" rifle, you need to have the hammers pulled back). Ricci's daughter in the movie appeared to be channeling Ricci's "Adam's Family" performance, which was great in Adam's Family, but not so great in a Civil War romance. Of course, she may have just been as bored as I was with the whole thing. It sounds like a tragic Civil War love story. The real tragedy is that I watched it to the end.

• I didn't make it through to the end

  buckcash2013-08-05

  I love movies. A movie has to really be bad for me to not like it. I only made it 20 minutes with this movie, then I had to just put a stop to it. I really wanted to like it. I just couldn't do it. As a period piece set during the civil war, I looked forward to the costumes, props and scenery. Sadly, they weren't enough to carry me through to see it to the end. What killed it for me was the acting. Really bad acting. Even Berenger, who I've come to expect more from, couldn't pull it together for this one. And the main characters, the mother and little girl, were just horrible actors, I'm sorry to say. So stiff and unconvincing in their dialogue that I just couldn't stand to watch the train wreck before me any longer. I gave it 20 minutes, every one of which was wasted.

• Uneventful storyline and slow moving plot

  Gordon-112014-08-31

  This film tells the story of a young woman and her daughter living in a farm house, waiting for the man of the house to return from the civil war. I am rather surprised by how bad "War Flowers" is. The opening battle scene is supposed to be impressive, but it gives me the impression that it is a bad made for TV movie. The story is slow and quite uneventful, maybe it is because they are in a very small town where nothing happens. Then, an enemy soldier arrives and turns things upside down. The romance is so unbelievable and poorly built up, that I find it ridiculous that they would fall for each other. Another poorly constructed storyline is the daughter talking about how the father would come back. And another annoying thing is that people talk so slowly in the film that it doesn't even sound realistic. Poor Christina Ricci, she has starred in more than her fair share of bad movies in recent years. I hope her next film will be better!

• Awful!

  mzmojorizn-406892018-12-23

  Not one of these people could act their way out of a paper bag!! This movie is simply awful. I couldn't make it through to the end.