A want-to-be epic story that fails quite miserable. Excessively long and not well edited with tons of meaningless scenes and quite a bad positioning of the camera which outcomes in wrong lightning and shadows from the filming team. The best is its soundtrack, by far.

CinemaSerf

Jun 17, 2023

6.0

Despite having quite a formidable, international, cast - this is really a rather plodding history that's really only memorable because of the Ernest Gold score. The story all centres around a group of Jewish immigrants who are stuck in British-mandated territory and they want to get to Israel. Luckily for them, "Ari" (Paul Newman) is on hand and using a combination of British indifference, politics and guile manages to get them onto a boat and on to their promised land. Thing is, once they get there and try to stand on their own two feet (collectively) they realise that they are quite literally surrounded by hostility. There's even the odd aspect of that from the factions within their own communities as their struggle for independence becomes as much one to survive. The history of this time is fascinating, especially as it's probably not a great deal less lively sixty years on, but the way this chronology unfolds is really wordy and pedestrian. It's clearly a bit of a labour of love for Otto Preminger, but that enthusiasm just isn't contagious as almost 3½ hours really does lumber along in a stop-start manner that makes it difficult to get involved with. The same s truly of the characterisations whom, aside from maybe Lee J. Cobb, don't really engage either. Pity, it's a subject with story well worth the telling - this just isn't really a film that's well worth the watching.