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The Field (1991)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:13
Fresh:5
Rotten:8
Average Rating:5.1/10
Synopsis: Based on a play by John B. Keane, THE FIELD tells the story of Bull McCabe (Richard Harris), a tradition-bound Irishman who fights to retain the land that his family has been farming for... Based on a play by John B. Keane, THE FIELD tells the story of Bull McCabe (Richard Harris), a tradition-bound Irishman who fights to retain the land that his family has been farming for generations. McCabe, who rents the land from a young widow (Frances Tomelty), hopes to take full possession of it when the widow puts it up for auction. None of the villagers try to oppose the fearsome McCabe, but a smooth-talking young Irish American utilities developer (Tom Berenger) attempts to outbid him, shocking the entire village and igniting a tense battle between the two men. As the battle builds toward deadly consequences it threatens to jar loose the McCabe family's dark, painful secret--one that's kept Bull's wife (Brenda Fricker) from talking to him for 18 years. Director Jim Sheridan (IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, MY LEFT FOOT) coaxes brilliant performances from the cast, most notably Berenger, John Hurt as a local simpleton in a brilliant and devastating characterization, and Harris, who earned an Academy Award nomination for his astonishing portrayal of McCabe, one that elevates THE FIELD into the rarified air of Shakespearean tragedy. [More]
Starring: Richard Harris, John Hurt, Sean Bean, Tom Berenger
Starring: Richard Harris, John Hurt, Sean Bean, Tom Berenger
Director: Jim Sheridan
Director: Jim Sheridan
Reviews for The Field
One of Jim Sheridan's weakest and most propagandistic films, this Iriah social melodrama was made between two highlights: My Left Foot and In the Name of the Father.
Richard Harris's standout performance elevates this simple fable into a near classic.
The Field is a movie that all too often reveals its origins as a play.
The astonishing Richard Harris can't overcome the underwhelming narrative. A rare misfire from Jim Sheridan.
Predictable and interminably slow-moving, The Field appears at times to be an uneven blend of John Ford's The Informer and David Lean's Ryan's Daughter.
A painfully overwrought combination of A Touch of the Poet and Zorba the Greek.
Sheridan seems out in left field here, undone by the sheer hokum of the material.
The Field is a grim allegory of hard life on the land -- a symbolic play, transplanted uneasily to the greater realism of the film medium, where what we might accept on the stage now looks contrived and artificial.
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