My thoughts on the German film 'The Lives Of Others'

My wife sat and watched it for about 5 minutes, she then gave up and headed into the bedroom because of its slow pace; it never really got any faster. My expectation of this film was that is was going to be an 8-9 out of 10, but I would only give it about 4 because the story was very basic. I say basic because I found I could predict what the next line of dialogue was going to be several times during the running of the film. This film beat ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ at the Academy Awards for the best foreign film picture in 2007, but even though I am one of the few who weren’t impressed with 'Pan's Labyrinth', it was definitely better than ‘The Lives of Others’. Although foreign films have a rawness and edge to them which real movie buffs rave about, I am sorry to say that they are simply not as good as Hollywood films, especially in the writing. Yes Hollywood churns out a load of tosh, which you simply have to sit through to get to the good stuff, but when you do, it beats all foreign films hands down. Basically American writers are the best there are, that coupled with good budgets, a mixture of the best actors and actresses from around the globe, and soundtracks containing Western music (again the best in the world).