A Damian Lewis Marathon

Having marathoned through both seasons of "Life", a show I love to bits, I wanted to dig up some other Damian Lewis stuff. He's one of my favourite leading men, after all. Well, the obvious thing to do was to watch "Band of Brothers", which I did. That is one incredible show. If you have any interest in WWII and can bear seeing a lot of gore and exquisitely acted human suffering, I recommend the show. One of the most impressive mini-series ever, it's dramatic and oddly beautiful. The ensemble is breathtaking, the story is paced well and each of the characters seems to have an equally compelling voice.

After finishing Band of Brothers, I dug up some of Lewis' older work. A dark and quirky comedy called "The Baker" was the first one I watched. It was nice to see him in a lighter role and the film itself worked for me. I cackled with evil glee through most of it. Warmly recommended to those who do not take films too seriously and like their romantic comedies a little warped.

I followed this up with "The Situation" which was a small, but surprisingly engaging film about the American presence in Iraq. Lewis' role was a bit smaller, but the film worked. It showed the locals as human beings for a change and the film was much better for it. The Iraqi photographer played by Mido Hamada was a good character and a rare one, I think, in a Western-made film. Connie Nielsen, not one of my favourite actresses, did her part well enough, but I felt she lost out to the strong male performances. An interesting, but naturally rather depressing flick on a subject that was current in 2006 when the film was released and is still as current, sadly.

"The Escapist" is a prison movie from 2008 and Lewis' role was small, but very memorable. Brian Cox was the lead and he did a good job with the relatively mediocre script. I don't think I've liked Joseph Fiennes in anything since Shakespeare in Love and Elizabeth and I didn't believe him as the tough guy in this one, either. I think he was miscast. Dominic Cooper, whom I still see only as the guy singing ABBA in swimming trunks, was okay. Not stellar, but decent enough. The plot bothered me. The script tried to be clever and didn't quite pull it off, in my humble opinion. Worth a watch. If there's nothing better on. Definitely no re-watch value, though and if you want to see a good prison movie (about escaping, too) just see "The Shawshank Redemption" and forget about this one.