Macerat It's Difficult NOT To Enjoy This Movie

Matrixiole Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Casey Duggan It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

bas215a I thought Besieged was an above average film (I like The Last Emperor, Last Tango in Paris & The Conformist better). The cinematography was beautiful and the acting was good. It was wonderful to see a African church service, although I wish Bertolucci had actually given her a nationality instead defining her as a generic African. Most comment writers seem to forget that Shandurai's immigration status required her to have a job and a permanent residence, so she was trapped in her position. She is clearly still in love with her husband, (note the scene when she reads the letter about his release) but sacrifices herself to her employer's desire to keep him safe. At the end of the film, she is still calling him Mr. Kinsky and has to get extremely drunk before she goes to his bed! That ain't love, sadly for Shandurai it is survival.

the_artist_formerly_known_as With each trip to the video store, I kept passing by "Besieged." Its cover always appealed to me, but not enough to rent it at the given time. Now, thanks to my newfound appreciation of David Thewlis, I have finally rented it.I must say, this strange "love story" was rather to my liking. I found both Mr. Thewlis and Ms. Newton to be very talented and able actors. The music score is fantastic with its blending of styles. So is the scenery. One thing, however, made me cringe (if only slightly). It was the very abrupt way of switching between some shots. It didn't go on throughout the entire movie (thankfully), but it was frequent enough to disorient me. In my opinion, the story/movie would've been just a tad better without that.All in all, a very good movie (minus the sometimes strange camera work), and I heartily recommend it.

w_wehrmacher This film is a little thin in many respects. It is beautifully shot, and has some potentially interesting characters, but the remained quite flat. I think that, on occasion, were given a clue as to what was driving the lives of the characters. In particular, we did get to see some internal struggle developing after Shandurai (Thandie Newton) learns her husband is not lost and is returning to her life... well after she has recovered from his loss. I had not seen Thandie Newton before, but I will be looking the rental shelves to see if I can find some of her other work. While it is politically incorrect to judge a book by its cover, I must say that she has just rocketed past a long list of my personal picks for the most beautiful woman on the planet.Despite any flaws the critiques may choose to expose, I liked this film very much and am absolutely over the moon with Ms. Newton.

George Parker Take everything you ever knew about Hollywood and filmdom and flush it. Open you mind and your heart and, if you're lucky, "Besieged" will speak to you of love like no other. Make no mistake, this film is not about romance or sex or even closeness. It is about what love should be; pure, unsolicited, unencumbered giving. It is a sad testament to the shallowness of popular concepts of giving-to-get love that this film received lukewarm reviews, one star from Ebert, and a mere 6.5 by IMDB.com users. Sometimes the only way to love someone is to set them free.