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Reds, a succinct, controversial title totally typical of a major directorial outing by Warren Beatty. We always knew that Beatty was on the left, but a film glamourising a known Communist who defected to the USSR and is buried within the Kremlin. How the studios let him make it is a mystery to me, but I suppose that the name Warren Beatty was enough.The film is long, and not for the light-hearted. It covers the broad canvas of early 20th Century American socialism. Concentrating first on Reeds efforts to form an American Socialist party, before moving to Russia; Beatty plays Jack Reed, the playboy writer, journalist and socialist. He opposes the war after initially supporting Wilson at the Democratic convention. After the Russian Revolution he becomes enamoured with the newly founded Soviet Union, as does his wife and sparring partner Louise Bryant, marvellously played by Diane Keaton who is excellent as the proto-feminist Bryant. Self-assured and very sexy, and her tragic love triangle between her, Reed and Jack Nicholson's character is brilliant. A number of other actors also crop up, including Paul Sorvino and M. Emmet Walsh.One of the most important films of its generation, and every movie fan should make this compulsory viewing. Any aspiring left-wing intellectual should also make this compulsory viewing - there were Communists and Socialists in America, and one of them is even buried in the Kremlin. The USSR may be reviled these days, but you cannot deny the hope and utopianism that swept the world in those first few years after the 1917 Revolution. Beatty brings all this marvellously to the screen in Reds.
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