After all that heavy writing about Bosnia, I guess I should go ahead and talk about the movie for the reasons I bought it. First, here's my word o' the day:

prurient
SYLLABICATION: pru·ri·ent
ADJECTIVE: 1. Inordinately interested in matters of sex; lascivious.
2a. Characterized by an inordinate interest in sex: prurient thoughts.
b. Arousing or appealing to an inordinate interest in sex: prurient literature.
ETYMOLOGY: Latin prrins, prrient-, present participle of prrre, to yearn for, itch.

This word has absolutely nothing to do with what I'm about to write.

So: how does the man I'm mentally stalking fare in this movie? Lewis has improved, acting-wise since Warriors. His character here is a flawed, but for the most part sympathetic. He does a good thousand-yard stare and he gets to cry a few times. However, he's never allowed to cut loose like he did in The Forsyte Saga, which is ironic because his character, Soames, is the apotheosis of repressed. I swear sometimes in TFS his face was a darker shade of red than his hair and he looked like he was going to explode literally. Even in Band of Brothers I thought he had more chances to show emotion even though Lt. Winters is a distant person. His character's deep care and worry for his men is strongly shown (without being hammy) in BoB and I think those scenes are what got him his Golden Globe nomination.

Physically, he looked great. Especially in the scene where he walked down some stairs butt nekkid to answer the phone. Woo-hoo, male ass! Thank you, BBC, for knowing who your viewers are! He also got to keep the natural color of his hair. In BoB, he had to put a dark rinse in (though he fought hard to be allowed to keep it red) because of the filming methods they used. The colors were muted (see Saving Private Ryan for an example of this filming method) and his hair would have stood out garishly, especially in sunlight. He had his natural color in TFS, but he had dentist hair (I wish I could remember the name of the woman who pointed that out).

Of secondary notice was Welsh hottie Ioan Gruffudd. I first noticed him in Titanic. Really! I remember seeing it and thinking "Whoa. Who's the babe?" even though he has about 5 minutes total screen time (if that). He is best known in the states for the Arts & Entertainment Horatio Hornblower series. I've seen most of them. Other than wanting him to get a haircut, he is a lot of fun to look at in that series. No nekkid butt shots for him in Warriors, however. Gruffudd played Bossinney the architect in The Forsyte Saga and can currently be seen as Lancelot in King Arthur, a movie I'm going to wait for on DVD.

Oh. His acting? I thought he underplayed his role until the very last scene. He had me sobbing into my red wine. I wanted to hug him, too.