Review: ‘Words of War’ (2025), starring Maxine Peake, Ciarán Hinds, Jason Isaacs, Ian Hart, Harry Lawtey, Naomi Battrick and Ellie Bamber

May 7, 2025

by Carla Hay

Maxine Peake (pictured at left) in “Words of War” (Photo by Damir Sagolj/Rolling Pictures)

“Words of War” (2025)

Directed by James Strong

Some language in Russian and Chechen with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in Russia, from 1999 to 2006, the dramatic film “Words of War” (based on true events) features a predominantly white group of people (with some Middle Eastern people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya becomes an outspoken critic of Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Russia’s invasion of Chechnya before, during and after she spends time in war zones and in hostage situations. 

Culture Audience: “Words of War” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and biopics about journalists who have criticisms of their own governments.

Ciarán Hinds in “Words of War” (Photo by Damir Sagolj/Rolling Pictures)

Clunky but intriguing, “Words of War” is mostly watchable because of the cast members’ performances. This often-trite drama (about slain journalist Anna Politkovskaya, an outspoken critic of Valdimir Putin) should’ve had better editing and sharper dialogue. It’s not a horrible movie, but there’s nothing outstanding about it either.

Directed by James Strong and written by Eric Poppen, “Words of War” (formerly titled “Mother Russia”) takes place in Russia from 1999 to 2006. It’s a biopic that was not approved by Politkovskaya’s family. However, “Words of War” plays it so safe and has such a fawning portrayal of Politkovskaya as a fearless hero (with no realistic personality flaws), the movie comes across as an officially sanctioned biopic.

Even when she’s shown near death in a hospital after being poisoned, her recovery is quickly skipped over, and she’s back on the job as a reporter again as if this poisoning never really happened. There’s no mention of realistic and lingering health issues she would’ve gotten as a result of this severe poisoning. For the purposes of this review, the real people are referred to by their last names, while the characters in the movie by their first names.

At age 48, Politkovskaya was murdered by a gunman in the elevator of her Moscow apartment building on October 7, 2006, which was the 54th birthday of Russian president Putin. Even if people see “Words of War” before knowing that Politkovskaya was murdered, the movie keeps foreshadowing that things will not end well for her because of her scathing criticisms of Putin in her work. Because of the abrupt and sometime off-putting way that “Words of War” is edited, the movie comes across as a “check list” of certain events in her life before quickly moving on to the next event.

“Words of War” begins in 2004, with a scene of Anna Politkovskaya (played by Maxine Peake) in a hospital for what is later revealed to be poisoning from drinking tea that a flight attendant served her on an airplane. Anna is a reporter for Novaya Gazeta, an independent Russian newspaper. She had been on the plane to report on the September 2004 hostage crisis at a school in Beslan. Instead of being able to complete the trip, she ended up unconscious in the intensive-care unit (ICU) of this hospital.

Anna’s two adult children—son Ilya (played by Harry Lawtey) and daughter Vera (played by Naomi Battrick)—are by her side at the hospital. Anna is also being attended to by a nurse named Mila (played by Elee Nova), when Anna’s boss Dmitry Muratov (played by Ciarán Hinds), the founder/editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, arrives at the hospital. Dmitry tells the unnamed ICU nurse receptionist (played by Jana Herbsta) that he’s there to visit Anna.

Dmitry is told that only family members are allowed to visit patients. And by the way, she mentions, there’s no record of someone with Anna’s name being admitted to the hospital. Dmitry immediately knows what that means: Anna is being targeted to get “disappeared” by the Russian government.

And so what does he do? He’s able to immediately find the room where Anna is and tells Ilya, Vera and Mila that they all have to smuggle Anna out of the hospital immediately. They wheel an unconscious Anna, who’s using an IV drip, out on a gurney and onto a waiting private plane, with no security guards in sight to stop them. How convenient.

For someone who’s supposedly being surveilled by a government and was poisoned under suspicious circumstances, Anna sure can be smuggled easily out of this hospital. It’s a very “only in a movie” moment that doesn’t ring true. A better movie would have made this hospital escape have more realistic obstacles.

People who saw the Oscar-winning 2022 documentary “Navalny” (about Russian writer/activist/politician Alexei Navalny, another outspoken critic of Putin) will remember that after Navalny was poisoned and in a hospital in 2020, his hospital room was guarded like a fortress by Russian soldiers. His wife Yulia Navalnaya had to fight to get through the human barricade to see him. In 2024, Navalny died of a fall in prison in under mysterious circumstances.

After Anna is successfully smuggled out of the hospital, “Words of War” abruptly jumps back in time to 1999, the year that Putin became prime minister of Russia. Anna is appalled by the Russian government’s invasion of Chechnya. And she isn’t afraid write about it and to go in the war zone to do to on-the-scene reporting.

Anna’s husband Alexander “Sasha” Politkovsky (played by Jason Isaacs), who is a broadcast journalist and TV talk show host, doesn’t want her to go this war zone. But nothing can stop Anna once she has her mind made up. Sasha makes Anna promise to always notify her family about her locations when she’s in Chechnya. Ilya is more upset than Vera about Anna going to Chechnya.

While in Chechnya, Anna meets a local journalist named Anzor (played by Fady Elsayed), who gives reality checks to wide-eyed Anna about how dangerous things can be. He somewhat reluctantly agrees to her request to let her tag along with him. Anzor also acts as an language interpreter when Anna as to interview some local people, including a woman named Fatima (played by Lujza Richter), who says she doesn’t trust Russian journalists, but Anna quickly gains Fatima’s trust anyway.

Yes, some explosions go off near Anna, but the movie doesn’t get too graphic or terrifying in showing her war zone experiences. Most people watching this movie will know or probably guess that if Anna is going to die, it’s not going to be in a combat zone. Her time in this war zone comes and goes quickly (less than 20 minutes) before she’s back in Moscow in another abrupt scene transition where’s back to a domestic life with Sasha, who’s feeling restless because he’s now unemployed and a little bored.

“Words of War” could have used title cards to show when a scene takes place in a different year because the timeline will be confusing to some viewers. Anna’s time in the war zone is supposed to be haunting her, but it’s treated in a somewhat superficial manner. In 2001, she attends a prestigious media awards ceremony with Sasha, who is supportive and enthusiastic when Anna gets a global award for human rights journalism. But the award feels like an empty accomplishment to Anna, who would rather be reporting from the war zone in Chechnya instead of reporting from an office desk in Moscow.

Anna’s confrontations with the story’s villains have good acting, but the dialogue is at times cringeworthy. There’s a scene in Chechnya where Anna is alone in a dilapidated room with a Russian combat leader named Major Lapin (played Steffan Rhodri), where she has been attempting to interview him. Major Lapin is hostile to her and doesn’t want to be interviewed.

Anna ends up scolding Major Lapin for all the death and destruction that the Russians are causing in Chechnya. As Anna gets up to leave the room, Major Lapin’s responds by coldly snarling at her, “I can slit your throat and let you bleed out like a pig.” This is the type of corny dialogue that lowers the quality of the movie.

A character that was fabricated for the movie is a shady government agent named Egorov (played by Ian Hart), who approaches Anna at a cafe when she’s back in Moscow. He starts off with a friendly conversation that turns into a lecture/warning that her life is in danger if she continues to insult the Russian government, namely Putin. Egorov pops up again from time to time to let Anna know that she is under surveillance.

The most suspenseful part of “War of Words” is when about 170 hostages are taken during a peformance at Moscow’s Dubrovka Theater in 2002. The hostage takers are Chechen fighters who are demanding Chechnya’s freedom from Russia. Because of her recent reporting from Chechnya, Anna is enlisted to be a hostage negotiator.

The movie has some subplots that kind of fizzle out, such as Anzor being captured in Chechnya and Anna feeling guilty about it. Another subplot shows Anna being stalked by a young man named Ivan (played by Billy Hinchcliff), who isn’t the type of person most viewers might think he is. These subplots are thrown into the story, like extraneous ingredients in a stew.

Peake depicts Anna with a steely confidence and somewhat of a messianic complex because Anna thinks it would be noble to die for a journalistic cause, even if her death would bring immeasurable pain to her family and other loved ones. Isaacs is perfectly fine as conflicted Sasha, who is torn between being supportive of his wife’s career and expressing his misgivings about her occupational hazards. The scenes of Peake and Isaacs together as Anna and Sasha are believable in their portrayals of this longtime married couple.

Hinds has a standout scene where Dmitry essentially shouts at Anna for acting as if she owns the newspaper. It’s a battle of egos where Anna wants to assert her independence but Dmitry has to remind her who’s the boss at this job. It’s one of the more realistic scenes in the movie because it’s one of the few times where Anna’s judgment is questioned by someone who shares her political beliefs.

“Words of War” is certainly a well-intentioned movie about a Russian journalist who could be seen as a martyr by many people. But it’s a little disconcerting that this movie, which has a cast of mostly Western Europeans, didn’t bother to have Russian accents for the Russian characters. Every character who’s Russian in the movie sounds British. If you can get past the incorrect accents and the sometimes sluggish pacing of “Words of War,” the movie is worth watching for a fascinating story about a journalist who lived on the edges of of risk-taking reporting—even if those edges look a little too smoothed-over for this movie.

Rolling Pictures released “Words of War” in select U.S. cinemas on May 2, 2025.

Review: ‘Dream Horse,’ starring Toni Collette and Damian Lewis

May 23, 2021

by Carla Hay

Toni Collette and Owen Teale in “Dream Horse” (Photo by Kerry Brown/Bleecker Street and Topic Studios)

“Dream Horse” 

Directed by Euros Lyn

Culture Representation: Taking place from 2002 to 2009, in various parts of the United Kingdom (particularly in Wales), the dramatic film “Dream Horse” features an almost all-white cast of characters (with one person of Indian/South Asian heritage) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A middle-aged woman, who works as a bartender and a supermarket cashier, convinces people in her working-class neighborhood to pool their money to breed a racehorse, despite knowing that they have a lot of odds stacked against them that the horse will become a champion.

Culture Audience: “Dream Horse” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in “against all odds” stories and movies about horse racing.

Pictured in front row: Owen Teale, Toni Collette and Damian Lewis in “Dream Horse” (Photo by Kerry Brown/Bleecker Street and Topic Studios)

“Dream Horse” is an against-all-odds horse racing story that is utterly formulaic but completely charming, thanks to admirable performances from the cast, led by Toni Collette and Damian Lewis. The movie is based on a true story, which is why even some of the far-fetched moments have a tone of authenticity. You don’t have to be a fan of horse racing to enjoy the movie, because it’s ultimately a story about the triumph of underdogs and anyone who is often underestimated.

Directed by Euros Lyn and written by Neil McKay, “Dream Horse” begins in 2002, with a look at the humdrum life of Jan Vokes (played by Collette), a middle-aged Brit who is barely making ends meet with two jobs in the former mining village of Cefn Fforest in South Wales. By day, she works as a supermarket cashier. By night, she’s a bartender at a social club whose attendees are mostly middle-aged and elderly people. In addition, Jan has to care for her elderly, ailing parents Bert (played by Alan David) and Elsie (played by Lynda Baron), who has to use a wheelchair after experiencing a fall.

Jan’s home life and marriage are pretty stagnant at the beginning of the story. Her husband Brian (played by Owen Teale) barely pays attention to her, especially when he’s watching farming shows on TV. Brian used to be physically active, but his arthritis has left him unable to work, so Jan is the breadwinner for the household. Jan mentions to Brian that it would be easier to take care of her parents if her parents lived with her and Brian, but Brian doesn’t really respond to that suggestion.

Jan and Brian have two adult children named Dennis and Sasha, who are mentioned but not seen in the movie, since they no longer live with Jan and Brian. These “empty nest” spouses love animals, so they have ducks, a whippet and several pigeons that are part of their household too. Jan bears most of the responsibility for taking care of everyone in her household. And it’s starting to weigh heavily on her.

Brian and Jan are in no danger of breaking up, but Jan feels underappreciated, bored and stuck in a rut. One evening, while working at her bartender job, Jan ovehears a man talking happily and enthusiastically about the race horse that he used to own with a syndicate. The man is sitting at a table with a group of five other men, and he has the group enraptured with his stories.

Jan asks her boss Gerwyn Evans (played by Steffan Rhodri) about this charismatic man. She finds out that his name is Howard Davies (played by Lewis), and he’s a horse racing enthusiast who nearly lost everything (his life savings, house and marriage) after his horse racing syndicate went out of business. Howard now works as a corporate accountant for wealthy clients, and most of his job entails helping his clients legally avoid paying taxes.

Jan is so intrigued by Howard’s passion for horse racing that she begins to research what it takes to own a race horse. She starts by picking up a Horse & Hound magazine at her job. In the magazine, she sees an ad for the latest edition of “Directory of the Turf: The International Guide to Horse Racing.” She buys the book and finds out that it would be possible to breed a racehorse with people in her working-class neighborhood if they pooled their resources for a few years.

The first person Jan shares this idea with is Brian, who is immediately skeptical. His reaction is to laugh and say, “It’s absolute madness!” Undeterred, Jan convinces Brian to help her buy a mare named Rubell. The next step will be to take the mare to get impregnated by a stud stallion, which costs money that Jan and Brian don’t have.

It’s now 2003, and Jan puts her plan into motion to get people in the economically depressed neighborhood to pool their resources and form a horse racing syndicate. When Jan sees Howard at her bartender job, she tells him about her idea for the townspeople to form a syndicate, and she asks him for his expert advice. Howard tells Jan, “It’s mostly wealthy, professional men who go for this kind of thing.”

Jan replies with a huff, “I wasn’t asking for your help anyway.” Because she’s strong-willed and determined, Jan decides to see what she can do on her own to form the syndicate. She makes flyers that say, “Breed a Horse to Get on Course!” The flyers are for the first meeting for potential syndicate members. But when Jan hands out the flyers on the street outside of a facility that takes bets on horse races, she experiences unenthusiastic and apathetic responses.

Jan also puts up flyers around the neighborhood about this first meeting, which will be held at the social club where she works as a bartender. The evening of the meeting, the turnout starts out as dismal: The only attendees are Jan, Brian, Howard and Gerwyn. About 15 minutes after the meeting starts, just as they start to think that they should cancel the meeting, one person arrives, then another, and then another, and so on.

Eventually, 18 people decide to join the syndicate (some of them joined after the first meeting), with Jan as the unofficial leader, since the syndicate was her idea. Most of the group consists of middle-aged people, but there are a few people under the age of 40 and a few who are elderly. During their first meeting, they also agree that no major decisions will be made without putting the decisions up for a group vote. Howard also warns the group that there’s less than a 1% chance that the horse they’ll breed will win a race, but no one backs out of this risky business venture.

The next order of business is to get Rubell impregnated. The syndicate raises enough money for Jan and Brian to take Rubell to a stud farm, where Rubell is matched with a stallion with a race horse lineage. Rubell gives birth to a colt, but she dies shortly after giving birth. Jan and Brian feel even more dedicated to taking care of this colt, now that he is an orphan.

During a syndicate meeting, the group votes on what to name the colt. Jan comes up with the name Dream Alliance (which is a nod to their group), and this name suggestion gets the most votes. Dream Alliance is now on his way to becoming a race horse, but only after he gets the proper training, which requires more money. Because of his experience as an accountant, Howard takes on accounting duties for the syndicate.

By 2006, the syndicate has raised enough money for Dream Alliance (now 3 years old) to be sent to a race horse trainer. Howard suggests Philip Hobbs (played by Nicholas Farrell), who runs one of the best horse racing training facilities in Wales. Jan and Brian bring Dream Alliance to the training facility, with the assumption that Howard made an appointment for them.

But to Jan and Brian’s dismay, Philip tells him that he’s never heard of Howard, and he doesn’t have time for them if they don’t have an appointment. Jan angrily says she can take Dream Alliance to a competitor. Philip sees that Dream Horse might have potential, based on the horse’s physique, and that Jan and Brian have already traveled a long distance to get to the facility. And so, Philip changes his mind and agrees to give Dream Alliance a test run.

You know what happens next: The horse starts off kind of shaky, but then gets the hang of it and starts running like a potential champion. Philip agrees to take on Dream Alliance for training. Then there’s the predictable scene of Jan giving an emotional goodbye to Dream Alliance, since the horse now has to live at the training facility.

The rest of the movie is exactly what you would expect it to be. There are victories and disappointments. And there’s one major championship race at the very end (the 2009 Welsh National), where Dream Alliance faces his biggest challenge after a potentially career-ending setback. Getting him to that race is also fraught with tension because members of the syndicate have different opinions on whether or not Dream Alliance should be in that race.

In “Dream Horse,” Jan is depicted as the driving force and leader of the syndicate, but there are other members whose personalities get some screen time. Brian is Jan’s supportive husband who usually takes her side when the group members disagree. Their involvement in the syndicate also puts a spark back into their marriage.

However, they have a big argument where Jan tells Brian that she thinks he’s become too complacent in life. Jan shouts, “When I first met you, you were a fighter! Now, you just accept things, and you don’t fight anymore!” Brian replies in a resigned tone, “So what your dad said was right: You could’ve done a lot better for yourself.”

There’s another hint that Jan has “daddy issues” when she gets upset with her father Bert for not seeming to care about her horse racing activities whenever she brings up the subject to him. Bert’s seeming indifference is hurtful to Jan, because when she was a child, Bert and Jan spent a lot of father-daughter time getting involved in animal races. These memories are part of one of the most tearjerking scenes in the movie.

Howard is extremely passionate about horse racing, but it’s come at a cost of nearly losing the trust of his wife Angela Davies (played by Joanna Page), who has made Howard promise her that he won’t get involved in horse racing again after it nearly ruined them financially. At one point in the movie, Howard confides in Jan about something from his family’s past (which won’t be revealed in this review) that heavily influenced him to follow his dreams in horse racing. There comes a point in the story when Howard has to decide how much longer he can keep his return to horse racing a secret from Angela and if he wants to stay in the corporate accounting job that he despises.

Other members of the syndicate who get notable screen time include:

  • Gerwyn Evans, Jan’s bartender boss, who is the most likely to see Dream Alliance as a money-making entity.
  • Maldwyn Thomas (played by Anthony O’Donnell), a know-it-all who likes to do a lot of research.
  • Anthony Kerby (played by Karl Johnson), who’s a “no filter” drunk in his 70s and who provides most of the movie’s comic relief.
  • Maureen Jones (played by Siân Phillips), a lonely retiree who has a fondness for eating Tunnock’s milk chocolate tea cakes.
  • Peter Woodall (played by Asheq Akhtar), a co-worker of Howard’s and the only person of color in the group.
  • Gordon Hogg (played by Brian Doherty), a co-worker of Howard’s.
  • Kevin “Kev” French (played by Rhys ap William), a neighbor of Howard’s.
  • A goofy man in his early 20s nicknamed “Goose” (played by Darren Evans), the youngest member of the group.
  • Nerys Driscoll (played by Di Botcher), who likes wearing straw hats.
  • Lee Baldwin (played by Gerald Royston Horler), who is Alun Baldwin’s brother.
  • Alun Baldwin (played by Rhys Horler), who is Lee Baldwin’s brother.

There are times when the syndicate has to choose between greed and the well-being of Dream Alliance. Naturally, when Dream Alliance starts winning major races, he catches the attention of a wealthy horse owner named Lord Avery (played by Peter Davison), whose champion horse Fearless Pursuit is one of Dream Alliance’s competitors. Not surprisingly, there’s conflict in the group over money issues and control.

It’s easy to predict which members of the syndicate will clash the most with Jan, who is not motivated by making money from Dream Alliance but is motivated by the pride and joy that Dream Alliance is bringing to their community. And it also isn’t too surprising when some members of the group remind Jan that she’s not allowed to have too much power in the syndicate, since all of the members of the group have to vote on major decisions together.

“Dream Horse” has perfectly satisfactory direction in its thrilling horse race scenes, as well as the interactions that the humans have with each other. Collette’s Jan character is really the heart and soul of the story though. When she finally starts to smile and feel like her life matters, her happiness is infectious to the people around her and to people who watch this movie. Jan’s transformation is a reflection of this movie’s message that this race horse was never about the prize money but about what can happen when people take big risks on a dream, even with seemingly huge obstacles in their way.

Bleecker Street and Topic Studios released “Dream Horse” in U.S. cinemas on May 21, 2021. The movie’s VOD and digital release date is June 11, 2021.

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