The Physician

2013

Action / Adventure / Drama / History

70
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Certified Fresh 74% · 2 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 74% · 1K ratings
IMDb Rating 7.2/10 10 43334 43.3K

religious fanaticism based on novel or book persia jew persecution historical figure religious fundamentalism

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Plot summary

England, 1021. Rob Cole, a boy born in a miserable mining town, swears to become a physician and vanquish disease and death. His harsh path of many years, a quest for knowledge besieged by countless challenges and sacrifices, leads him to the remote Isfahan, in Persia, where he meets Ibn Sina, the greatest healer of his time.

Director

Philipp Stölzl Photo
Philipp Stölzl

Top cast

Ben Kingsley Photo
Ben Kingsley as Ibn Sina
Michael Jibson Photo
Michael Jibson as Stratford Monk
Stellan Skarsgård Photo
Stellan Skarsgård as Barber
Elyas M'Barek Photo
Elyas M'Barek as Karim
720p.BLU 1080p.BLU
988.24 MB
1280*720
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles
24.000 fps
2 hr 35 min
Seeds 16
2.05 GB
1920*1080
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles
24.000 fps
2 hr 35 min
Seeds 9

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by filipemanuelneto 8 / 10

It's a good movie, it entertains its audience well, but it's riddled with small historical errors that could easily have been corrected.

Films about medieval times are always nice to watch, especially for me, who have a great affection for this historical period, about which I did a specialization as a historian. Unfortunately, and as happens regularly, this movie is full of mistakes.The script is quite good, from an entertainment point of view: an English orphan who is raised and trained by an itinerant barber acquires a great fascination for medicine and for the ability to cure illnesses and physical ailments. However, he is aware that he knows very little, and that his master knows even less, and this awareness becomes clearer when he lives with Jewish doctors who learned his art in the East. So he decides to disguise himself as a Jew and travel to Persia in order to be admitted as a pupil of a master physician, Ibn Sina.For those who don't know, the film is partly based on real facts and characters: Ibn Sina, for example, really existed and entered the history of medicine with his Westernized name: Avicenna. It is also true that the Arabs had, during this period (the so-called Year A Thousand), a much more advanced scientific knowledge than the Christians, and the Jews, who had a certain ease in circulating between the two worlds (East and West), ended up developing a particular vocation for science and medicine, which was later used in the West, especially in times of greater religious tolerance.Unfortunately, many things in the film (particularly the details) don't make sense: it would be a bit difficult for a Christian without much education to disguise himself as a Jew without being recognized and "unmasked", nor would it be so easy to make a journey from the British Isles to the heart of Persia, although it would not be impossible. It would be impossible, however, to see the Persians of the year 1000 celebrating something with fireworks, since this technology only reached that culture two hundred years later. Modern notions of sorcery and necromancy would also only emerge from the 13th century onwards, and the Church never burned anyone, it declared the defendant a heretic and handed him over to civil justice, which (that one) could burn him or not. Even more egregious was the mistake of including in the film an epidemic of bubonic plague before the 14th century, when the disease historically appeared. And even though the Shah did exist, and the Seljuks were indeed a threat in the region during the time period depicted, we would never have seen Muslims prostrate themselves to the Shah because they simply won't. There are still other errors: the Tower of London, which appears at the end of the film, was only built a hundred years later and would not have the appearance of the current building until, at least, the 16th century. Don't get me wrong, the movie is worth it even with these problems. What we have to understand is that this is not a documentary and things were not exactly as they are portrayed.Thomas Payne is quite good in the lead role and does a good job as an actor, even if he is sometimes overshadowed by the impressive and charismatic performances of colleagues like Stellan Skarsgard or Ben Kingsley, two actors who are in excellent shape and who give us truly committed performances. And interesting. Emma Ribgy has also done a good job, but has relatively little to do.Technically, the film has good cinematography and good sets and costumes. They're not especially accurate from a historical point of view, but they're aesthetically well done. The CGI is reasonably good and works well, if not very realistic. The soundtrack didn't particularly convince or please me, but the visual and sound effects are good. The pace is also quite good, and despite the film being relatively long, you hardly feel the time passing.
Reviewed by chusa 6 / 10

Entertaining but disappointing if you've read the book

It's hard to rate movies which are based on books, especially if you really like the book. So while the movie is entertaining in itself it's a huge disappointment in terms of "sticking to the original story".

---------Spoilers---------

The book can be divided into three parts: 1) Rob's time in England 2) His journey to Isfahan 3) The time in Isfahan

Part 1 is based loosely on the book but very well done. It's hard to transfer a 700 page book into a 150 min movie so I guess I can live with the shortcuts the movie took in this part especially because of Stellan Skarsgård's wonderful performance as Rob's mentor. I was very skeptical at first about the movie because I love the book so much and I've read it five times, but the beginning exceeded my expectations and I was really looking forward to the upcoming 2 hours. Unfortunately it all went south from there. Part 2 (the journey) was almost completely cut out of the script. That's really disappointing because that is the time in which Rob first bonds with his future wife (a redheaded Scottish Chritian), learns to read, the ways of Judaism and how to keep his cover. Part 3 - the biggest part of the book by far- is completely different from the book. It's pretty much a redone story, something Noah Gordon (the author of the book) was not too happy about either. I recommend to anyone who saw the movie and at least kind of liked it to read the book: The movie took basically nothing away from you, it contains no spoilers to the real story whatsoever which is great. Of course there are a few parallels like Rob illegally performing autopsies or the outbreak of the pest, but all in all it's nothing like the book.

But the thing that really baffled me the most was the poor character development of Rob Cole. Tom Payne did a decent job, no question. But at no time during the movie could you sense all of Rob's struggles: losing his family; traveling England and finding himself to emerge from being a young roughneck who fought with every man and slept with every woman to wanting to become a real healer; having a sixth sense about upcoming death; betraying his religious views; learning to deal with all those new cultures...to name a few

Also another big part of the book is completely canceled out of the story: The development of a great friendship between 3 very unequal men. In my opinion the most important and best part of the whole book. Karim was a joke in the movie. Ben Kingsley was good, not great. The Shah was played very well by Oliver Martinez but the character's relationship with Rob Cole is not even close to what it is in the book.

Furthermore the topic of Islamic radicalism is unnecessarily blown out of proportion.

Don't get me wrong, the movie was entertaining and everybody who did not read the book and saw it with me liked it or found it to be at least all right. But this movie compares to the book like two football games: Sure, it's 11 on 11, the fan's scream in the stands and the grass is green but what really happens on the field differs a lot.

Watch the movie if you like, but you have to read the book to understand why it is considered to be one of the best books ever written...

Reviewed by zorro47 7 / 10

Great movie to entertain, but not an historical documentary

I can understand that many history buffs would be disappointed with the movie. Okay, it is historical inaccurate, but it's just entertainment. The same with any novel which introduces fictional characters and imaginary or altered historical events. An example: In one of the best movies of all time (at least for me)Ben-Hur, the main character, played by Charles Heston, when almost dying of thirst, is given water by Jesus. Later on he tries to help Jesus carry the cross. Bible followers could be appalled by this since it never appear nor in he Bible or in the Christian traditions. This is very common with all historical novels or movies based on real life characters. Producers and directors play for their public at a given time. As in the movies of World War ll, Japanese where demons and all Nazis murderous monsters; in this day and age, anyone from the East or Middle East wearing a cloth around his head or a burka, is a fanatical zealot. As we know (or should know), that is not necessarily true.

So in the movie we have at hand I can safely say that is a very entertaining movie, with excellent photography, breathtaking landscapes, good action, excellent acting and an overall a very interesting story. What really bothered me was the almost quantum jumps it makes in its story line. How this impoverished boy managed to get accepted into a prestigious and exclusive medical school without even knowing the language? Furthermore, it is never explained how he managed to have the resources to live quite a lavish in this progressive city. Probably you'll have to read the book to find a plausible explanation. In the other hand, I cannot discard this movie because of its glitches. It has lots of other aspects going for it; specially that it made me feel good; it had that old time spectacular grandeur that has been lacking in today boisterous blockbusters.

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