"Sharpe" Sharpe's Challenge: Part 2 (TV Episode 2006) Poster

(TV Series)

(2006)

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8/10
Much better than expected
grantss1 April 2023
(Review is of both parts).

1817. Sharpe has retired from the army but is summoned by the Duke of Wellington for an important mission. An agent in India has gone missing while trying to track down a traitorous British officer now advising a rebellious local leader. That agent is Sharpe's old friend Patrick Harper. In India things are complicated when the daughter of the commanding general is kidnapped.

I wasn't expecting much from this. The Battle of Waterloo was the ideal way to end Sharpe's story and Sharpe's Waterloo made for a decent finale. So when this was made nine years after Sharpe's Waterloo it seemed unnecessary and just a cash grab.

However, it's not bad. Like many Sharpe episodes the plot is a bit shaky at times but there've been worse episodes in that regard. The action scenes are great, there's great momentum and the film is never dull. We also have Toby Stephens, of Black Sails fame, putting in a solid performance as the turncoat British officer.

Highly entertaining.
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9/10
Sharpe's Challenge: Part 2
allmoviesfan25 January 2023
Warning: Spoilers
After the cliffhanger ending to Part One of Sharpe's Challenge (which borrows great chunks of material from Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe's Tiger, Sharpe's Triumph and Sharpe's Fortress books) Sharpe and Harper are still embedded in the Ferraghur fortress amongst the enemy and looking for a way to free Celia Burroughs, the imprisoned daughter of the British general and get intelligence on where and where not to attack the fort. Sharpe also wishes to exact revenge on Dodd for the Chasalgoan massacre from fourteen years ago. But there are obstacles in their way and, of course, a battle to be fought.

If Part One was very good, this is brilliant. It's been said before, but Sean Bean IS Richard Sharpe and just because a decade and more has passed doesn't mean he still doesn't fully inhibit the role of the British rifleman. Something about the way, in that distinctive Yorkshire accent, he says "Bastard". Sharpe is Bean's defining, signature role.

Sir Henry Simmerson and Sergeant Bickerstaff continue their scheming. Dodd is plotting to take over the domain of the Indian chieftain he is supposed to be serving. Michael Cochrane as Simmerson was always a good bad guy. Great that he could be written into Sharpe's Challenge. And Toby Stephens is great as the conniving Dodd. He has the right face for a bad guy!

An exciting and satisfying second chapter in a welcome return for the franchise.
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