Oliver Twist

2005

Action / Crime / Drama

54
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Certified Fresh 61% · 140 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 63% · 10K ratings
IMDb Rating 6.8/10 10 35086 35.1K

Please enable your VPΝ when downloading torrents

If you torrent without a VPΝ, your ISP can see that you're torrenting and may throttle your connection and get fined by legal action!

Get Expert VPΝ

Plot summary

An adaptation of the classic Dickens tale, where an orphan meets a pickpocket on the streets of London. From there, he joins a household of boys who are trained to steal for their master.

Director

Top cast

Ben Kingsley as Fagin
Mark Strong as Toby Crackit
Andy de la Tour as Workhouse Master
720p.BLU 1080p.BLU
962.41 MB
1280*720
English 2.0
NR
23.976 fps
2 hr 10 min
Seeds 5
1.98 GB
1920*1080
English 2.0
NR
23.976 fps
2 hr 10 min
Seeds 17

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by TheLittleSongbird 7 / 10

Good film, but inferior to the David Lean classic.

The 1948 David Lean film is a classic, that is well worth watching for the outstanding performance of Alec Guiness. This adaptation was very good indeed, but I do think it is inferior to the 1948 film.The film does look splendid, with fine period detail, and the cinematography is gorgeous. I also thought the score by Rachel Portman was beautiful, and very fitting. Roman Polanski's direction is excellent, and although it is a long time since I read the book, it is fairly true to the source material. Barney Clark gives a charming and vulnerable performance in the title role, and the Artful Dodger and the other boys are well done. Nancy was well portrayed and her character's death was very disturbing, I have to admit. The end scenes were very well staged and perfectly captured on camera.However, the film does have some less impressive bits. I will confess I was disappointed in Ben Kingsley as Fagin, he wasn't terrible, he just wasn't quite my idea of Fagin. Fagin is supposed to be oily and manipulative, and while Kingsley occasionally had these in his performance, compared to the outstanding performance given by Guiness, it was somewhat anaemic. Jamie Foreman looks the part of Sikes, and evidently has the acting ability, however I felt that something was holding him back, as if he was reluctant to be violent. The dog wasn't quite as convincing as the dog in the 1948 film, in the case of the 1948 film, if there was such thing as an Oscar for animals the dog should've got it. I did like the fact that the film tried to be faithful to the spirit of the book, but it felt a little bloated at times.Don't get me wrong, it is not a terrible movie, it's just that I preferred the David Lean film, but I did like this film a lot. 7/10 Bethany Cox
Reviewed by

Reviewed by TashC 6 / 10

Not Much of a Twist

Adapted from the classic Dickens tale, Oliver Twist is the story of an idealistic orphan struggling to survive in a savage adult world. A world where hypocrisy, greed and cunning are celebrated and there are only rare glimpses of compassion.

The film focuses on the key events of the Dickens novel, excluding many of the subplots and associated characters. It opens with Oliver's (Barney Clark) arrival at the workhouse of "Please Sir, can I have some more" fame and follows his escape to London and its dingy underworld. Here he falls in with a band of pickpockets led by Fagin (Ben Kingsley) - a central character typifying hypocrisy, greed and cunning - but finds salvation in the form of Mr Brownlow (Edward Hardwicke) who recognizes the goodness in Oliver and endeavors to extract him from his, albeit unsuccessful, life of thievery.

As he did with his award-winning, "The Pianist", Polanksi drew on his own life experiences as an orphan in the ghettos in World War II to recreate certain moods. Grim, grimy and often claustrophobic, "Oliver Twist" startlingly depicts a callous world where children live at the whim of ruthless, self-serving adults. But the horror of this dark, unforgiving world is relieved by the inclusion of humour and banter throughout, making the film both captivating and entertaining.

As Oliver, Barney Clark exemplifies the helplessness of an innocent at the mercy of strangers and being manipulated for their benefit. As noted by Mr Sowerberry, the undertaker, "There's an expression of melancholy in his face, my dear, which is very interesting. He'd make a delightful mute". And mute and incapacitated - be it through hunger, illness, injury and/or fear - he is for much of the film. Other than a surprising brief show of defiance that takes him from the coal shed and sets him on the road to London, there is little evidence of any determination, strength or willfulness at all in this Oliver. But unfortunately there is little to endear him either and the film suffers for it.

Harry Eden has more depth and is much more compelling as the Artful Dodger. Plucky and likable, his struggle with the consequences of his betrayal of Nancy (Leanne Rowe) is agonising. Ben Kingsley is masterful and almost unrecognizable as Fagin. Depicted as pure evil in the novel, Polanksi strives to give this character humanity and meaning. The result is a foul, exploitative, groveling survivor –a desperate and pitiful villain, but not a completely heartless one.

The elimination of many of the twists of the novel means that this film may disappoint viewers familiar with the intriguing undercurrents of Dickens' plot and richness of his characters' and their relationships. The only incredible discovery that Oliver makes in this version is that there is a better life to either the workhouse or the den of thieves.

While adaptation to film necessitates simplification of the story and as Polanksi points out "For today's taste, you need to abandon a certain amount of melodrama that was very typical for the period", it is easy to feel that in this paring down we have been left with an entertaining adventure set in 19th century Britain. When it comes to this Oliver, less is not more.

Read more IMDb reviews

7 Comments

Be the first to leave a comment