The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.