BOOKMAN3 Review of Century

Century (1993)

terribly disappointing, given the cast and writer-director

[3/10 · 16 November 2005]

I was excited to discover this early movie by Stephen Poliakoff, the prolific British writer-director. An added bonus was the presence of Clive Owen, Miranda Richardson and Charles Dance, who are among my favorite actors. Nonetheless, the story makes almost no sense and you wonder why the movie was ever made. Owen describes Dance, the director of a medical research institute, as the most brilliant man he had ever met, even after they feud and become antagonists, but we are never shown anything about Dance to justify this extravagant praise. Similarly, Dance tells Owen, a specialist in physiology, that he is his most promising young doctor, yet we never see Owen do anything in that field. So, if you would enjoy seeing Clive Owen looking incredibly handsome, or seeing Miranda Richardson sensuous and bare-breasted, then CENTURY might be worth viewing, but if your highest value in a movie is a story that makes sense, look elsewhere.