The Liberator

This plodding biopic about Simon Bolivar from Venezuelan director Alberto Arvelo and Children of Men screenwriter Timothy J. Sexton stars the brooding French actor Edgar Ramirez, who played a different sort of “freedom fighter” in the biopic Carlos. Arvelo's sweeping film spans about 30 years, from Bolivar's tragic first love through to his military campaigns and multiple exiles, but he never emerges as a fully rounded character. All of the blabber about freedom and democracy in The Liberator only amounts to a lot of flat, Lucas-ian civics lessons delivered on horseback, with a shot of an anonymous refugee woman clutching her pregnant belly inserted any time the film requires an emotional impact. Even though this is Venezuela's Best Foreign Film submission for the 2015 Academy Awards, it's a visually unappealing picture, with a lazy-eyed handheld camera and a murky color palette.