Watch Molokai: The Story of Father Damien For Free

Wonderfully offbeat film!

Too much of everything

It is not only a funny movie, but it allows a great amount of joy for anyone who watches it.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Molokai was a good movie. Not outstanding, but still good. It talked very openly about the prosecution and exile of Lepers in that time period. It was an emotional roller-coaster because at first you don't really feel for the lepers, as you have no connection to them. Eventually the more time Father Damien spends with them, the more that the audience starts to sympathise. As the audience is starting to sympathise more and more, then it gets sadder and sadder. Although I don't enjoy watching older movies (even 1999) but the directing in this film was quite forward for 1999 and felt like a modern film with a bad camera. The acting cast was very convincing and you really felt emotionally connected to the characters in it. It was based on a true story and you could really feel the characters come to life.

I'd have to agree with my colleague from Amsterdam: this movie is horrible. It is disastrous on all fronts: acting, story line, soundscapes and soundtrack, rhythm, cinematography, etc... etc...And now for the bad part. Here we have a man, Father Damian, a character that has literally *everything* you need to make a fantastic biopic: a man with a modest social background living in industrialized Flanders, who suddenly finds himself in "paradise" (the beautiful tropical and lush islands of Hawaii), and who gives everything up to go live with the lepers, and who continuously disobeys his superiors. Really, this stuff is enough to make three brilliant movies with. Everything is there. And these movie makers throw it all away. How can you scr*w up so badly!!? My doggy could do better.The lead actor is some third rate Australian, who has to twist his accent to fake something that doesn't at all resemble a Flemish guy speaking English. This alone makes the entire movie an irritating experience.Really, EVERYTHING about this movie is bad. I could go on. One more example: when they introduce a new character, they zoom in on its feet, then show some trees, and then suddenly Damien turns up and the character returns but out of focus, or somewhere in the background, etc...etc... Nothing in this movie is done right.I'm not going to write anything else. This is pure crap. I don't like Hollywood, but this nonsense sucks ten thousand times more.Someone please grab this story about Father Damien, and turn it into a master piece. It should be a piece of cake.I voted a straight "1", because "0" was not an option.

Ok, so we have a Dutch/Belgium production, set & filmed in Hawaii, made by an Australian director with Australian, British & American actors. You can't accuse this film of not being an international concern!Solid acting performances by many involved, especially Jacobi, Wenham & O'Toole. Sadly the script lacks depth in many areas, had the director & producers had not been at loggerheads through most of the shoot, this could have been dealt with.Interestingly, Paul Cox still holds some bitterness over this. In a recent interview on the Australian TV channel, Showtime, Cox admitted the film was about 80% of what it could have been if he had his way & that there are too many "idiots" running the industry.Not a great film but not bad either, worth checking out but could have been a more indepth film.

This is a surprisingly intimate look at some of Father Damien's experiences, but the dramatic structure of the film is often frustratingly fragmented.Scenes of the authorities on O'ahu struggling with how to deal with the amazing man and his demands on behalf of his community seem to have been shot very hastily, and they fit poorly with the more carefully conceived segments from Moloka'i. Even there, the scenes with Peter O'Toole seem poorly integrated into the progression of the story.Despite the participation of many top-flight actors and actual local victims of Hansen's disease, this film offers only fleeting, tantalizing glimpses of what could have been a tremendously powerful drama of the life of a man who may yet become an actual saint. In isolation, the leading performances are very fine, but the package failed to gel and the film is, finally, only a carefully-drawn series of vignettes.