BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Mandeep Tyson The acting in this movie is really good.

Freeman This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

martharay-01256 Gorgeously filmed and aided by some excellent performances Peter Weir has made a great film in The Year of Living Dangerously. Mel Gibson plays a young Australian reporter stationed in Jakarta, Indonesia under the Sukarno regime. He befriends a dwarf Chinese- Australian named Billy Kwan and romances a Brit journalist Jill Bryant. The look of the film is good- It makes it seem almost akin to a documentary and there is a beautiful glow to each scene. All the actors are in top form- Gibson, Sigourney Weaver and especially Linda Hunt who plays the dwarf. This is a sweeping tale of morality, romance and political unrest. Another highlight is the score by the ever-reliable Vangelis.

sharky_55 Weir's fascination with the mystical and magical has taken him to places where most filmmakers would never dare to venture for fear of obscuring or losing the audience. He is Australian and maintains that connection through many of his films, but has also stepped out of this comfort zone and into the international; away from the cultural cringe and tall poppy syndrome that raided our media and arts for so long and I think still to an extent does so. Weir is a good choice, perhaps not just for the geographical proximity of Australia to Indonesia and how he understands how to use the landscape as a way of building character (see The Last Wave), but also for the way in which the expatriate stumbles in his navigation of the new environment, buffeted by the cultural shift and on permanent unease and wariness. We sense this is something that Weir is quite familiar with. A young Gibson is therefore perfect for the role of Guy Hamilton; an immature, fresh-faced reporter thrust into a role a great deal more important than himself, he has that vitality and zest that you cannot get with an older portrayal. Most people have gone through the same period - the one in which your future aspirations aim higher than the clouds and you feel ready to change the world. Guy is rough on the edges and easily distracted when he sees the white jewel in a murky, foreign forest, but initially, perhaps, he has those qualities. To the extent that he maintains them is where we lose track a little, but he shows enough promise to be taken under the wing by the local veteran, Billy Kwan, diminutive in stature but not in courage. Linda Hunt's portrayal has been praised widely and deservedly - she in herself has created so many layers of sexual ambiguity and mystery that aren't explored, and ultimately the character is reduced to a rather pointless sacrificial lamb (she dies for a tiny, insignificant cause which leads nowhere except to highlight the moral danger that is all around this politically charged country), but she has done more than enough to keep us guessing long after her demise. Kwan is an extension of Weir's mystical; less person or dwarf, and more a creature of great passion and emotional capability that feels a sense of moral debt to those around him and goes to great lengths to pay it off. She is almost positioned on another layer from the narrative itself at times; the cryptic voice-over revisiting its own plans and devices and muttering on the happenings and progress of these...like a guide that introduces you to a strange, new world at the beginning of a video game only to chastise and take back its godlike power when you stray down the wrong path or kill the wrong targets. But the message itself seems contradictory. Kwan bestows great responsibility and opportunity onto Guy - including positioning him with a make or break story that could potentially save many lives. But he also criticises him for his nobler intentions; he would give up the whole world for Jill, he claims, and has mistakenly thought that Guy too would do the same. Eventually he does go along those lines. After a rather tame rise to the challenge that rewards him with a busted eye, he rationalises that his love for Jill is more important and scurries away. Is it wrong to expect more of a character in this situation? The film poses so many questions of its political environment but shys away from answering all but the trivial ones. Weir's vision is limited by its caricatures, and in the end the noble white man has not even risen to the challenge, but run away from it (hand in hand with the fair maiden). And Weir, incredulously, frames this as an epiphany, as a coming to the senses.

SnoopyStyle It's 1965 Jakarta in Indonesia under the brutal rule of President Sukarno. Guy Hamilton (Mel Gibson) is on his first foreign assignment for the Australian Broadcasting Service. He is befriended by photographer half-Chinese dwarf Billy Kwan (Linda Hunt). There is an air of anti-western feeling. Guy is lost without connections until Billy starts helping him out. He has an affair with British diplomat Jill Bryant (Sigourney Weaver). It's a world of murky Cold War politics, secrets and trying morality.This has a great exotic atmosphere. The movie has a sense of impending doom. Mel Gibson is terrific and shows his superior star power. Linda Hunt creates such a compelling character. It does need to heighten the tension a little. The plot meanders in this murky world. It needs a direction. Nevertheless I just love the dark exotic mood.

undertaker72 I'very disappointed with this boring, irrelevant movie. Basically nothing relevant happens: A guy are working in a tropical hellhole and meet some unlikely, unbelievable character, like a midget philosopher-photographer, a tough British soldier who don't like ice and the only one attractive woman in the whole Jakarta who, of course fall in love with him. Almost anyone in the movie behaves very irrationally, crashing armed checkpoints for bring a girl at home, wandering crime riddled streets just for fun, getting out of the car to face a machete-armed hostile crowd, and continuously,blithely ignoring a whole army of mean-looking armed guards. This movie is just an excuse for presenting the real heroes: the commies, who tries to "liberate" Indonesia, as they "liberate" China, Korea and Vietnam.