The more time passes since the moment of the "Lie Down with Lions"
First night on TV, the more difficult becomes it to accept all the events on the screen seriously.
Especially now, after the tragical experience of September 11 in 2001, when USA and Russia
became the co-allies at struggle with the common enemy - international terrorism.
The film's estimation
The estimation of Timothy Dalton's work
The rating will be updated regularly here and on the Page of Chronology as your estimates will come!
We have renewed the sound track (a lot of thanks to Victor Karpovich!)
and photoes on this Page. We also added another response to this film, which, as we suppose, is more
accordant to the changes in the world during the latter half of the year 2001.
Victoria Geronkina, 1999:
The next words are printed on the cover of the licensed video-tape
"Lie Down with Lions": "The political thriller, the spy thriller and the romantic drama met in this
big screen-story". And then: "The backdrop of the film is the war in Nagorny Karabakh and intrigues
of the politicians and the Secret Services, who use the political instability in the Region for
their own purposes ". Additionally, "the apple of discord " and the desirable result for every
participant of the political game to achieve is the Azerbaijan black gold. In the other words, the
plot doesn't carry something new or original for viewrs: the good and proud-hearted people of the
country are fighting for the independence under the leadership of Saphar Han against the
tremendously bad Russians� (Oh, this is already a custom - to be filming in the anti-Soviet or
anti-Russian films for Mr. Dalton! - K.E.). I can't say much for my politics, but this side of the
movie seemed to me very naive and primitive.
But here we have the case, when the good acting makes the
average film better.
Omar Sharif is very good, racy in the part of Saphar Han. I also
marked Nigel Hivers as Peter.
However the main thing, that makes the film attractive for the
audience, is its central figure, the agent of FBR Jack Carver and his lover Kate performed by
Timothy Dalton and Marg Herlenberger. It seems to me, they together form a perfect whole on the
screen. They are looking good here, and complement each other beautifully. I saw Marg earlier, but
only this time I was taken with her. Kate, performed by Marg, is candid, emotional, loving and
courageous simultaneously. She is charming, while speaking in jest and clowning with Lack, she is
natural, while playing the scenes of worry and despair - there are many such a scene in the film.
Remember, how she is crying, sitting on the floor and understanding, that her lovely man "used" her,
and in reality he was another man, than he seemed to be before. Marg is absolutely true-to-life in
this scene and in the others, no less difficult.
Timothy Dalton had not a soft thing in "Lie Down with Lions": he had
to perform the metamorphosis of the self-assured cynic into completely another human - the faithful,
the affectionate, the honest one. And Timothy had done it! "Cynicism is a narcotic drug", - says
Jack Carver to Kate in the first part of the movie. - "Don't think, you will change me". But at the
end of the film he speaks the long-expected by her words with a shining smile on his face: "Oh, God!
I love you!". And you believe, that this man will never "use" people, he will not work for FBR.
Properly speaking, he had already stopped his work for FBR, when he refused to take Saphar Han off
to America, having understood, that Saphar Han is needed to people of Nagorny Karabakh, that his
place is in his native country. "You are a good man", - Saphar Han says to him. "No, I am only
trying to become", - replyes Jack, but we see, that he had already become the good man.
I think, that Jack from the second part of the movie is a man every
woman can only dream about. He is "a tower of strength", he is a man, who is able to defend and save
his relatives and friends in any situation. How much gentle he can be with Kate and her little
daughter, how much carefully he swaddles her child, borned from the other man, when Kate is resting
and sleeping after hard way in the mountains! Timothy plays these scenes brilliantly! But not only
these ones above! He is very good during all the film. As for me, I was impressed very much by the
scene, where Timothy is lying on the operating table. It may be thought of Jack, that he is really
under operation without using the narcosis - so much ache we see in his eyes.
I'd like to mark the scene I have already mentioned above in
connection with Marg Herlenberger: when Kate understands, that Jack is a FBR-agent, who grimly
shoots and kills Russian agent in front of her eyes. Kate cries, Jack looks at her. And in his eyes
you see the understanding, that now he is losing everything he had. In his eyes you see the spite
and despair simultaneously. This is a special talent - to say so much with the eyes! And Timothy
has it to the full.
I think, the part of Jack Carver is the one of the best in his
career, pity, but not in so good movie.
V.G., 1999
Nicholas Nosov, 2001:
The best way to watch the film "Lie Down with Lions" - to switch
off the sound of TV-set. Another way it's difficult to take seriously all the galimatias, which
is spoken on the screen by the eye-filling and pleasant heroes, lead by Timothy Dalton.
The film"s setting takes place in the mountains of Nagorny
Karabakh at the times of alteration (perestroika) in the USSR, but it was not a yime of
alteration in the minds of the Hollywood screenwriters. We watch the standard cliches from the
times of the Cold War: Russians as sadists and maniacs and the real heroes from FBR - Americans.
With the sound switched off everything looks much better.
Certainly, the heroine has left handsome Timothy Dalton not because he worked for FBR (who could
construct such an absurd thing!), but because he, like the last cattle, left her flat and her
heself with the breathless corpse.
It's very simple to perform the sadists and maniacs - it could be
the bands of robbers and marauders, which already appear at the troublous times. The heroine's
return to Timothy Dalton's hero will look logical and reasoned, certainly, not because of the
ideological problems with her husband, but due to his uncomprehended disappaerance: what ought
she do - the lonely woman with a little child?
As for Timothy Dalton's hero, he didn't go with the task of FBR
singly (!) to save one aboriginal kingling, but simply wanted to find his former lover.
And after all the favourite Hollywood cliche will stay in the
movie - the confrontation between the "scrofulous intellectual", the doctor, and the noble and
athletic superman, where the last one will certainly win. However Timothy Dalton was excellent
as a superman here!
I do hope, that someone from the Hollywood screenwriters will see
my brief note and think out the puzzle, how to rewrite the sound-track of the film. I am sure,
the movie will be much better after this improvement.
