In Love and War

Special features: the orginal theatrical trailer cast and crew biographies and filmographies. Studio: New Line Home Video Release Date: 02/03/2004 Starring: Chris Odonnell Sandra Bullock Run time: 113 minutes Rating: Pg13 Director: Richard Attenborough

This disastrous 1996 film by Sir Richard Attenborough was meant to be part of his informal series of movies about great men, including Gandhi, Chaplin, Cry Freedom (the Steven Biko story), and Shadowlands (C.S. Lewis). In Love and War is a recounting of young Ernest Hemingway's World War I love affair with Red Cross nurse Agnes von Kurowsky, who was eight years older than he and who became the basis for the Catherine Barkley character in A Farewell to Arms. O'Donnell is terrible, in a word, and Bullock mostly seems out of sorts when playing someone real. Except for the scene in which Hemingway is introduced, fearlessly making his way to a trench under heavy bombardment, you have no idea that this person O'Donnell "portrays" will eventually change the direction of American literature. For a much better experience, look toward Attenborough's previous works. --Tom Keogh