I think the aim of having seasoned actors acting the film and singing live was ambitious and may have had a slight negative effect on the overall performance, but on the whole I rather enjoyed it I think this is unfair, though I admit I come from only having watched this adaptation, though I also think this gives me a more objective perspective. Sam Barks was only decent singer, otherwise both singing and direction were abysmal. Kirsi wrote: 'I have never heard so bad musical adaptation. So the cold hard portrayal of Crowe falls in line with a man who is blindly devoted justice and authority.Īs for his voice, he is not a classically trained singer, he is an active blues/rocknroll singer, so his singing would sound out of place! If he is Catholic, most of the French are, it could be further construed that he'd rather face hell than deal with his existential crisis. Rather than making an decision which he would be damned either way. In his view, a criminals should not have an altruistic side to them. If he does not let ValJean go, he does not know how to repay him or even justify all of these years of going after him. If he is thankful and let ValJean go, it goes against his worldview of justice and authority, which is the bedrock of his existence. He just could not reconcile his happenstance, feeling and worldview. This way his suicide is more believable, ValJean saving his life and ask for nothing in return has assaulted his worldview of the world. The obsessed Javert is kind of overplayed. To be fair to Crowe, it is a different interpretation of Javert, a man with unwavering allegiance to justice and authority, not obsessed. He just didn't have the range of Terrence Mann, or Earl Carpenter, or Norm Lewis, or Hadley Fraser, or Philip Quast, or any Javert who came before him.

All of the other actors but Amanda Seyfried had at least some stage experience, which would have prepared them for such a difficult role.

When he sang, he focused hard on singing and abandoned his acting, or he tried to fix that and his singing became worse. He did quite well, a heart of wood, restrained but dangerous.īut he did not have the vocal ability of Javert, which is a fairly demanding role. For many who saw the movie, we have wide experience with many, many Javerts, and so we were able to look at Russel fairly objectively.

The musical has been part of my life for longer than that. A little restrained, but that was his choice. Jessica wrote: 'Every time I hear about the movie (which I TOTALLY loved-and yes, I've read the unabridged book and am currently reading an abridged version for a college humanities class), people always diss Rus.'

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