Reviews

I'm pulled two ways by this film. I've seen it several times over the course of the last 40 years. Visually it is stunning. The acting is really good, especially from Eastwood and Burton. I have to say though that I enjoyed the book a lot more as it concentrated more specifically on the intrigue rather than cramming in as much killing as possible. As regards the kill count this for me was the first war movie that ran away with the idea of slaughter on a mass scale, of killing and mayhem for its own sake. To this extent it was the forerunner of the Rambo series; even of the recent re-make of 'Ingloureous Basterds'. In the book the Burton character actually saves a young German soldier who is about the get burned - the complete antithesis of the film. A lot of people who have reviewed this film have said that it would be impossible for so many of the enemy to be killed by so few. I disagree. The allied team were professional assassins unlike the Germans most of whom had probably never seen action. Moreover, the Burton and Eastwood characters were dressed in German uniforms which gave them a decided edge (this made it murder in terms of the Geneva convention, by the way!). I also found it difficult to imagine that such a plan as this could have worked, despite the blips that took place, and ended up with the team safely on board the Junker with the plan accomplished. When you think how military intelligence tended to mess up even the most straight-forward of plans, it does make this convoluted scenario seem even more unbelievable. The whole thing snowballed so much that I ended up feeling really sorry for the German blokes - they were only inexperienced servicemen (probably not Nazis) getting shot to bits by a team of professional assassins, not really knowing what had hit them. As I said, even though I thought Eastwood acted really well, his character just got my goat. He really seemed to be enjoying himself. God help me, I ended up hoping he'd get a bullet where it would do him least good and maybe that would wipe that sadistic half-smirk off his face.

First I have to say that I enjoyed this film, but I have a couple of persnickety questions though about native American tribes. 1) Why was the main tribe changed from Comanche (as in the book) to Lakota (Sioux) for the film? 2) Why does Hollywood always seem to cast the Pawnee as the villains? This was the case in this film and in others - Little Big Man immediately springs to mind - again, in the film version, the Pawnee replaced Cheyenne as the murders of Jack Crabb's family.

As far as I can make out, the Pawnee gave great service to the US as army scouts. I would have thought they deserve some recognition by Hollywood, rather than always being cast in the role of villain. Seems a little ungrateful? Just a thought

Having watched this film for the first time (we had some Scots friends staying and they wanted me to see it) I have to say that I was not especially impressed. Having read some reviews calling it the greatest film ever, I was surprised by how inadequate it was in terms of the production. The battle scenes gave full opportunity for Mel to vent his hatred of the English in graphic form (I bet he wished the swords were real!) but I still found it largely lacking in both sentiment and reality. Oh, I know we complainants are constantly exhorted to look on this as a film (i.e as a fantasy and not as a documentary etc), but I'm afraid can't, entirely. There is a strong political subtext and message in this film which does have modern implications for people in the UK. For these reasons alone, we do need to take it seriously. I think the effect that the movie has had on people, especially as regards the liberties taken with historical characters, concerned me a lot more than the film itself. The opinions appearing in some of the reviews reinforced my worries.I was really concerned by the way people seem to have established very fixed opinions about events and characters of which they admittedly know little, apart from the information they are given in the course of this film. This is totally bizarre. History seems to be the only academic discipline in which this occurs and which is accordingly trivialised to such an extent. Few people would take such liberties with a topic involving other subjects - Science or medicine,for example. Some of the opinions about Edward I, for instance, are quite extreme - 'epitomy of evil','monster' 'tyrant' etc. Don't you think people should maybe do a bit of further reading before applying such epithets? Edward I deserves better than this pathetic bit of character assassination. He was a strong medieval King -intelligent, personally brave, ruthless, learned, pious and a positive and faithful husband (both his wives absolutely adored him). Like most people, his character was a mixture. Most of his successful counterparts, Phillip IV of France and Robert I (the Bruce) of Scotland were equally determined and certainly just as cruel when the need arose. If we're talking about more recent comparisons I think Abraham Lincoln might well fit the bill. Lincoln was basically a good man, but was driven to extremes by the political position in which he found himself. Like Edward I he was equally determined to protect his country by the establishment (or re-establishment) of a state of union, and definitely was, despite his wit and geniality, equally ruthless in achieving what he saw as necessary for the good of his country. I do realise that this is a film and that films need heroes and villains. That's fine as long as they are mythical villains such as Lex Luthor or the Riddler; my point is that if you want to assess a proper historical character, and publicise those assumptions on a public forum, maybe you should do a bit of background reading and not base your opinion entirely on a highly biased, third-rate Hollywood epic

Comparisons between the 60s version of this splendid work and the latest one are difficult because they were both great. I have really enjoyed the last version especially as regards the performances of Damian Lewis and Gina McKee.

One previous contributor said that he found himself almost liking Soames which 'we were not supposed to do'. Is that right? Galsworthy intended The Forsytes to be representative of the upper middle class with some bad aspects - arrogance, lack of sentiment, conscious always of their respectability - but also with a positive side - sturdy, determined, ambitious, but ultimately concerned with ownership and property. Soames is an extreme example of his kind, to the extent that he regards people - especially his wife - as potential property. Irene, on the other hand, represents the new force which, along with the effects of WWI and the rise of the Welfare State, nationalisation etc will soon overthrow the old order.

Superficially at least, Soames is the villain. He appears to terrorise his wife, physically abuses her and more. However, is there another side to this? Irene marries him quite cynically for materialistic reasons. It's not merely a question of 'not loving' him. He positively makes her flesh creep right from the start. We are given the idea that she is forced to marry him by her stepmother and by her poverty. Force her?? As the story goes forward, we see that she is a strong character - no-one can force her to do anything. Her poverty? She has £50 per annum from her father. This might not seem a lot, but it was about what an artisan earned in a year at that time (on which he was expected to keep a family). Despite his treating her as property, Soames does love Irene in his way and he does try his best to give her what she wants. In return she is openly unfaithful to him, denies him children and even conjugal rights. As regards his bad treatment of her, she certainly returns the compliment in kind. She could be looked on as something of a vampire - she sucks the life force from Soames and old Jolyan and wantonly destroys the happiness of her friend June and Bossiney (though admittedly he goes along willingly). As regards her own son her hatred of Soames tempers her dislike of Fleur so even her son is badly affected by her force of character and neurosis.

I think Galsworthy, as well as writing a simple commentary on Edwardian and Victorian life was also trying to divide his readers into factions - the pro-Soames camp who like the old ways, and the pro-Irene (the 'new woman' camp) who wanted change.

Whatever, I have to congratulate Gina McKee. She carried off that complex character of Irene so well. Her enigmatic Mona Lisa smile, did it display goodness? Or the opposite? I'm still not sure

I quite liked this film. There was little else to it but graphic violence and the battle scenes were suitably gory. The situation should make one sympathise with the Spartans but, paradoxically, I found myself rather wishing the 'baddies' would triumph. Spartan society was pretty hairy by all accounts, hard, uncompromising, women didn't have much of a life, 'weakling' babies exposed to die etc etc. Admittedly the Persians had numbers on their side, but the Spartans were much better armed, with heavy infantry weapons - metal shields, spears and cutting swords while the Persians had lattice-work shields which the spears just went through. In a modern parallel it was brown bess muskets against kalashnikovs. Which, of course, evened things up a bit Re the film, there were some fairly questionable situations, though. I mean, would the traitor who was stabbed by the queen really go into the conference chamber with the actual Persian '30 pieces of silver' stuffed up his jumper? Unless he was mentally challenged in a big way I'd say probably not. Also (a common feature of all 'goodie/baddie' movies), why, when there are 15 baddies wanting to skewer one goodie, do the baddies form an orderly line and obligingly come at him one at a time? Why not all jump on him at once? In terms of the inevitable corpse-count it would seem to be a better policy.

Still, I have say I watched it all the way through with only a minimum of boredom (in the non-fighting bits at least). My fave character? Ephialtes the hunchback, of course - he reminded me of my old woodwork teacher after he'd had an argument with a lathe!

Firstly, my comments and my marking in no way reflect my opinion of the ability of the actors. It's the substance I take exception to. I'm appalled to find that this film is intended to be funny. Several contributors to the 'comments' section have used the adjectives 'humourous','hilarious' etc to describe it. Warfare may be many things - awful, soul destroying, mentally scaring at the same time as being honourable and even uplifting if done in a worthy cause. Under no circumstances can it, or should it, be funny. Quite honestly, I find it a sad reflection on the malaise of our culture that so many (I'm sure otherwise good people) should want to find it so, even in cinematic format. I found the film to be a repulsive and awful attempt to achieve a large audience at the expense of appealing to the darkest elements within our psyche. What are we to take from this? That the Allied side in a what was one of the few justifiable conflicts in world history contained the very same sadistic and homicidal element that existed in the evil we were trying to defeat? This film is an insult to those who fought and died. They deserve a better epitaph than this skin-flick for closet psychopaths. My only regret is that I don't appear to be able to give it a lesser mark that I have done