kevinalvarezp I was pleasantly surprised at how well the tsunami tragedy was re-enacted. The acting and the writing stand above the other craft.The execution is compelling thoroughly. It boggles my mind to find so many negative reviews on this site. This film in my opinion presents an honest and comprehensive account of the tsunami tragedy and its aftermath, it explores the causes, it attaches blame without luridness, it visits the foundation of the family as a institution in the midst of a life altering crisis, it is emotionally compelling, it is educational, it is thought provoking. This film made my everyday problems feel like a picnic at the park.I didn't know Tim Roth was that good.

AJBraxton It is television after all so I kept waiting for the good news. Where was it? Certainly in this story of massive human suffering there has to be some good news. Okay... I'll give the producer/director/writer some leeway in that they wanted to tell a story about the Tsunami for a western audience so that probably accounts for the seemingly bizarre absence of any Thai person of note in the movie with the exception of hard working kitchen staff boy. Thank god for the western NGO worker to help those poor villagers who had fled to the hills . . . and then the Brits who came to the aid of the villagers. I am living in Thailand now and find that the Thai are quite capable (despite a bizarre bloodless coup of a freely elected Prime Minister to restore democracy?) of doing some really good things.. and doing quite a bit for themselves. There was an attempt to show the difference in response to this disaster on the part of the Thai (why it was o.k. for them to burn bodies w/o identification). But.. please.. where was the good news in this movie?

indy-39 I'm sure the decision to do a mini-series(?) on the 2006 tsunami was not an easy one to make. In all fairness, I can't imagine any fictionalized account of a major disaster like this one not being inadequate in trying to examine what really happened. Although this wasn't as thoroughly offensive as Titanic (you can stop reading here if you're a big fan of that film), where the deaths of hundreds pale as compared to the lives of two fictional teenagers, this film falls far short of giving the dead their just do. Most bothersome of all, the film feels unfocused and uninspired...perhaps the project should have been given to someone with a real point of view...or better still shouldn't have been done at all. The actors give it their best, although truthfully most of it never rises above the level of soap opera. Every time a storyline pokes it's head out of the water it gets carried off in the undertow. Tasteful? Yes. Interesting? Sorry, Discovery Channel could do better in one third the time. Ultimately I found it surprisingly insignificant...this is not HBO, it's TV.

bob the moo A group of European scuba divers are out at sea off the coast of Thailand on Boxing Day 2004. They return to the shore to find destruction as far as they can see, an ocean full of bodies and no sign of the loved ones they left behind. Meanwhile, on the shore itself the survivors of the tidal wave flee for higher ground for fear of a second wave hitting. As the authorities struggle to return some sense of order or control, the survivors try to find their missing relatives whether they are dead or alive.I wasn't sure about whether to watch this or not because I found it difficult to imagine how a film could adequately capture the sheer sense of horror and the loss of so many hundreds of thousands of lives. And of course, having watched it, the film doesn't really ever manage to give the viewer a sense of how destructive and devastating the disaster was. Of course this is not really the fault of the film but it is generally just difficult to picture that many people dead and difficult to look at footage of missing villages and understand what happened. So this leaves the film to try and deliver it the best it can and fill the film with a handful of characters that can be followed from pre-disaster into the aftermath of the title.In doing this it was never going to be perfect but it does build a cross section of characters and also deal with the emotional impact of the disaster as well as the organisational nightmare that followed as well as the inevitable search for someone to blame or be angry at. The film doesn't manage to do all of these well and indeed some of the threads fall flat; Tim Roth's journalist as an example of one aspect that could have been scaled back a bit. The result of it trying to do a lot is that the film is a bit too long and does feel baggy at some points. The strongest thread is that of the couple played by Ejiofor and Okonedo. They convey the emotions of those who have lost relatives without knowing if they are dead or alive. This part is engaging because of their performances – both of which are wonderful and painfully convincing. Their relationship is real before and after and it hurts to watch what they go through – they are the heart of the film and, although they are European, they embody the loss and pain. The Peabody's (McKee et al) and Machielsen's Tan do this as well but it is not as raw and emotional. The rest of the cast are left with the other material to work with and they all mostly do good work. For all his character's relative unimportance, Roth still does well and he does provide a glue to hold the bigger picture together. Bonneville and Collette provide the organisational side with teeth and meaningful performances.Although the plot wanders a bit in the second half, this film still has enough about it to engage and move. Occasionally baggy it is mostly interesting and holds the attention. The cast are mostly good but the emotional heart of the film is wonderfully delivered by two guttingly real performances from Ejiofor and Okonedo.