Comwayon A Disappointing Continuation

ThrillMessage There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

Cheryl A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

memuellerpa This is one of my Top 20, maybe Top 10, favorite movies. The acting is superb, especially that of Ben Tibber, who plays David. The way the story slowly trickles out through flashbacks keeps the narrative tension going through the "slow" spots. Actually, I like the so-called slow spots as much as the "action" sections. Watching David practicing smiling for the first time in his life is painfully amusing and touching. The scenery is gorgeous, the glimpses of "normal" life, seen through David's eyes, remind us of the everyday joys we take for granted- friends, family, bread, books, moments of humor. The climax of the movie (the scene in the church) combines a small interaction with an officer, gorgeous music (Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus), a stunning flashback, and David's expressive face, to powerful effect. I always cry during the last minutes of the movie, as Damien Rice's "Cool Water" closes the score- a perfect choice. There are so many other good things about this movie (e.g., the use of a bar of soap), but I will just say- see it, if you haven't already. I highly recommend this movie. It is fine for families (except those w very young or highly sensitive children).

rowmorg The historical basis of brutal deprivation and summary shootings in a post-WW2 Bulgarian prison camp is uncertain. Director-actor Paul Feig nonetheless portrays a Nazi-style horror with slave-camp beatings and a summary shooting over a bar of soap. It matters not whether this is Communist or Nazi, it is just evil, out there somewhere.For some unknown reason, one of the psychotics running the camp decides to help a boy (David, Ben Tibber) to escape, giving him his ID papers in an envelope and telling him to take the envelope to Denmark, without telling him why or what it contains. This preposterous premise should signal that we are in a silly scenario that cannot be taken seriously.This is further reinforced when David, who is presumably Danish, has no difficulty communicating with the multiple language-speakers he encounters on his trip. These days, such nonsense could only come from an American, and Paul Feig acts in his own film in the most absurd scene of all, when, playing an English-speaker, he gropes for Italian to talk to David, who has been talking English throughout. Real Europeans now use sub-titles and genuine languages.David's expressionless journey through a non-specific rural Italy into the arms of a non-specific Swiss resident is strictly for the hankie-clutchers who have no disbelief to suspend. I'm afraid mine reared up in outrage when the film showed a uniformed policeman with his cap on in church, something unthinkable that Paul Feig doesn't know, although he was willing to lard the scene with a bellowing church choir, and drape the Swiss village with happy well-adjusted cousins of the Von Trapp family.When David finds a book with his mother's picture on the back and makes a gee-whizz expression we know the resolution is nigh, and with the help of the Swiss national air-line, he is reunited with the bitch who wbo abandoned him in the torture camp, sorry, his ever-loving and faithful mother. Feig is true to style when he shows a seated airplane passenger wearing a fedora. For hankie-clutchers only: normal viewers avoid with care.

cooler_pn This movie insulting one of the most tolerant nations in the world - Bulgaria. My country during the WW2 is part of German Alliance, but she managed to save your Israelite. After coup d'etat by the communist she joins the Allies and fight against the Germans... In 50s we are part of Warsaw Treaty but we are not part of the Soviet Union. Belene Prison Camp is created for the most dangerous enemies of the republic (and inconvenient for the communist party people) but never for children. It's the most difficult for escape prison on the Balkans. It's recorded only two escapes in 70-80s. In the movie the camp looks like Germans concentration camp!? Nobody in Belene wasn't shot for soap... Obviously the entire movie is filmed in Bulgaria. Italy is Baltchik, in Switzerland have orthodoxes church... The boy managed to survive 3 weeks with chunk of bread. He managed to cross one of the most guarded borders in Europe - Bulgarian - Greece. First, after the boy is seen by the guards immediately is send operative group to capture him. The border is not only one fence, it separate on two sectors upper and downer(the actually border) on the upper has guards with dogs and fence with wires which on contact immediately signals in guard station, after the fence have 3km mine field. Crossing the border is impossible the guards shoot on sight...P.S. Sorry for the bad English.

Neil Doyle The last portion of this film, with tender scenes between JOAN PLOWBRIGHT and BEN TIBBER, reminds me of a similar survival theme from '48's THE SEARCH, where the boy has to learn to trust adults again after brutal wartime separation from his mother. Ben Tibber's sensitive portrait of the boy and Joan Plowbright's equally moving portrayal of the motherly artist who takes him in, are the best things about I AM David.Before that, the story plods along at the beginning with a labor camp sequence where the boy is being given instructions by a man on how to escape and deliver a certain document to Denmark. Flashbacks during the course of the film fill us in on the harrowing events in the labor camp that led to the boy's desire to escape. His friend, Johannes (JAMES CAVIEZEL), it turns out, is a brave man who sacrifices his life for the boy, David.David keeps one step ahead of the authorities as he manages to escape, survives with what little money he has, rescues a young girl from playmates who tied her up in a burning barn and ends up for awhile enjoying family life in the Italian countryside. But all the while, he's hearing the warning voice of a man telling him: "Don't trust anyone." And he doesn't.He's not even sure of Sophie (JOAN PLOWBRIGHT) who takes him under her wing, a good-hearted woman whose young son died and assumes a motherly relationship with David. Their scenes together in the countryside are the most touching and believable moments in the whole story and lead towards a happy ending for the boy, who is reunited with his mother for the rather abrupt finale. The film's biggest assets are the natural performance of BEN TIBBER in the central role and the gorgeous color photography in natural outdoor settings.