The Way Back

Indie, Drama
4.5 stars
Really good. National Geographic produced this film inspired by the true story of a group of (mostly) political prisoners who escaped a Siberian prison during WWII and walked 4,000 miles to India. Jim Sturgess (Across the Universe) stars as the leader of the group possessing outdoors experience, and co-stars include Ed Harris as a selfish American, Colin Farrell as a dangerous Russian criminal and Saoirse Ronan (Atonement) as a “hanger-on” so to speak. Since the group is multicultural and have differing backgrounds, the mix is most interesting. The end of the film provides a synopsis of the historical events leading up to the tearing down of the Berlin wall, but doesn’t tell us what the main characters did during those 40 years, which is my only complaint. On the whole, an excellent film of perseverance in the most impossible of conditions.