“The Railway Man”: See It!
The richest, most satisfying new movie drama is “The Railway Man.” It features Colin Firth (and Jeremy Irvine, as Firth’s younger self) as a former British Army officer, who was tormented as a POW at a Japanese labor camp during World War II and discovers that the man responsible for much of his treatment is still alive. He sets out to confront him. I don’t think Firth has ever been better — not even in “The King’s Speech,” for which he won his Oscar, or in “A Single Man,” the movie that set up the Oscar. “The Railway Man” got mixed reviews and is scoring only moderately on sites like Metacritic. It’s too old-fashioned for some people. But if you are in the mood for something uncynical then this is it.
