Set during World War 2, ‘Chosen’ is an unfocused, drab affair that should be an exciting action movie given its premise but misses the mark in a major way. I’m not sure whether its the way the story never feels like it gets going until well into an hour of this 100 minute war film or just a lack of polish and direction but unfortunately ‘Chosen’ is not a film to remember. The story focuses on Sonson (Harvey Keitel) who plays a Hungarian citizen who unwittingly becomes the leader of a resistance group hell bent on fighting the Germans after his sick wife is denied medicine by the Germans who have occupied the town due to her being a Jew. The story itself is okay and the climax to the film does have some good action but again, its never anything special or that we haven’t seen before, done better in other films. It takes over an hour to get going and I felt like the pacing was way off in this film which didn’t help. The acting itself was again, simply okay. There was nothing outstanding from anyone but the costume design was good and authentic for the time period. Set in Hungary, I felt it was an odd choice to have all the actors speak English, granted with an accent, but I do feel a subtitled affair may well have been more effective and believable. Overall, ‘Chosen’ is not a good movie. The characters never fully delve into their emotions and the film zips along with little emotion or desire to show this. As a war film, I found it disappointing and there are other films that have tackled this material better in the past. With ‘Dunkirk’ on the horizon this Summer, ‘Chosen’ I feel, is just another victim of a war film failing to hit the mark.
