Rating: PG
Genre:
Epic
Release Date: 10/03/2006
SubTitles: English/French/Espanol
Dubbed: English/French/Espanol
Sound: DD5.1/DD1
Run Time: 195 Minutes
Flags: Violence, Adult Situations, Not For Children, Adult Language
Distributor/Studio: Paramount
Few filmmakers other than
Warren Beatty would have had the courage and vision to fashion an epic film from the life of famed American Communist
John Reed (who is the only US citizen buried in the Kremlin). The film is an effort to humanize a political movement that has previously been depicted on screen in a series of unsubtle and prejudicial broad strokes. The film begins in 1915, when
Reed (
Beatty) makes the acquaintance of married Portland journalist
Louise Bryant (
Diane Keaton). So persuasive is
Reed's point of view--and so charismatic is
Reed himself-- that
Bryant kicks over the traces and joins
Reed and his fellow radicals. Among the famous personages depicted herein are
Emma Goldman (
Maureen Stapleton),
Eugene O'Neill (
Jack Nicholson) and
Max Eastman (
Richard Herrmann). The second half of this nearly-200-minute film skims through the years when
Reed, now a Russian resident, becomes disillusioned by the harsh realities of Bolshevism. Despite the celebrity line-up of real-life "witnesses" to the events depicted in the film (ranging from novelist
Henry Miller to comedian
George Jessel!), historians took
Reds to task for its oversimplification of events and its laundering of the notoriously promiscuous
Louise Bryant.
~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
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