Breaker Morant

Rating:
Summary: Favorable and enthusiastic
Review: "Breaker Morant" cannot be surpassed in terms of drama, tension, and tragedy. Based on a true story, this film leaves the viewer shocked and yet uplifted. The acting is superb, and all the parts necessary for an extraordinary human drama are in place. I recommend the film to all who wish to see both action, humanity, honor, and passion upon the screen.

Rating:
Summary: Scapegoats for an Empire...
Review: This is a powerful true story, of the trial of three Austrailian officers, court martialed for executing a prisoner, and the murder of a German missionary during the Boer War.

I regularly used this movie to teach military ethics. The movie is a study of the dangers of vague guidance and unwritten orders. The movie also provokes though on the challenges facing junior officers in uncoventional forces fighting a guerilla enemy. Do the ends justify the means?

There is no black and white in this film. Harry Morant is not a hero, nor is he a villian. The one weakness in the film is the failure to develop the character of Lord Kitcner, who not only prosecuted three Australians for following his orders, but went on the lead the debacle at Gallipoli during WWI were nearly a generation of Australians were slaughtered.

In one soldier's humble opinion, one of the greatest movies made.

Rating:
Summary: In war, as in chess, the pawns are sometimes sacrificed.
Review: This is an intelligent and engrossing film about how war erases moral certainty. In the Boer War, three Australian soldiers are courtmarshalled for shooting Boer prisoners. The irony of their being brought to trial for killing the enemy in war is set against the irony of their being killed in war by their own side. Is it ever wrong for a soldier to kill the enemy? Is it ever right for a government to sacrifice its own soldiers?

If you like courtroom drama, superb acting, and inteligent moviemaking that goes beyond the simplistic good guy/bad guy portrayal common to war films, you'll love Breaker Morant.

Rating:
Summary: The movie was excellently done with an equally amount of awe
Review: The movie was done exstremely well. It shows that war is hell. That what people see can be different from one person to the next. Their are no heroes in this movie but there are soldiers who are shot for doing their jobs.

Rating:
Summary: Into history? Empire? Non-Hollywood realism? Watch this!
Review: The Boer War. Too many Americans don't have a clue about this epic clash between the British Empire and Boer(Dutch) guerillas in South Africa at the turn of the century. We know the Civil War, WWI and WWII, Korea and Vietnam, but are too often oblivious to other conflicts of incredible human sacrifice and passion that played out on an equally grand scale years ago. This movie inspired me to rush to the library and read everything I could find on the Boer War. I particularly recommend James Michener's book, "The Covenant". Great history, scenery, personal drama, and passion.

Rating:
Summary: Good movie, but bad technology
Review: While this is a top notch movie from Woodward and Brown, the technical end of this movie was poor. On my player, I saw no time advancement. I also had no opportunity to chapter search. The movie tells the story of a trial of Australian officers who are on trial for murdering a civilian during the African Boer War at the beginning of this century. The English government decides to use these men as examples and scapegoats for the poor performance in the war. Great acting and scenery.

Rating:
Summary: An outstanding production, albeit inaccurate in places.
Review: I am a retired army officer, with 40 years service in southern African forces. I have also made an in-depth study of the events that led up to the court martial which sentenced Lts Harry Morant and Peter Handcock to death. As such I was very critical in my viewing of Breaker Morant. Given that the film was largely based on Kit Denton's book "The Breaker", there are several inaccuracies of fact in the film, eg. the execution never took place at Pietersburg - it was in Pretoria. Also, five officers were court-martialled, not only three as shown in the film. I understand that the film was made on location in South Australia, which explains why the terrain was unlike that in which the Bushveld Carbineers operated. Finally, I am now a registered tourist guide and have designed a tour which covers the same ground as the Bushveld Carbineers, visiting the places where Breaker Morant operated and carried out the tasks that led to his execution. The 7-day tour ends at his graveside in the Church Street cemetery in Pretoria. If anyone wants to know the real facts, using this excellent film as background, I'd be happy to hear from them. In conclusion, I rate the film as the best I've seen concerning the Anglo-Boer War. It highlights the strong emotional reactions that the war had on the lives of those who took part in it (including my Australian grandfather, who settled in South Africa after the war).

Rating:
Summary: "Breaker" Morant, Outstanding Examplar of "Australian" Wave
Review: I remember seeing this riveting film with my father in Westbury, LI, roughly after the period (due to shifting economics) cinemas became duplex. True, "Breaker Morant" is a smaller-scale film in one sense, but it is much greater than many of "epic" dimensions. The performances are uniformly (no pun intended) outstanding, Mr. Beresford's direction so skillfull it is arguably the finest filmed adaptation of a stage play I've ever seen. (In fact, in my first lapse of critical acuity, I didn't discover this until long afterwards!)

The films begins as a fact-based courtroom drama yet ends with a truly rare, poignant (not mawkish) poeticism. The script is fully realized: for example, it shows the title character as a refined, cultured man of the world. Late in the story, when in prison and offered the opportunity to escape, a visitor says: "You can see the world." So powerful is the portrayal of Morant, his devastatingly simple reply was interpreted prima facie by my accursed literal mind! (Hence, my second, and more serious critical lapse.) Australia should be proud of this contribution to world cinema, for it is a great, rara avis: a memorable film.

Rating:
Summary: Powerful Movie, but . . .
Review: "Breaker Morant" viewed without context is undoubtedly a very fine, exciting, and well acted film.

However, I found myself troubled by two different things after watching it.

One is the way that Morant was depicted. I find myself wondering if the real Breaker actually behaved the way that he did in the trial. Because the truth is that came across, particularly with the "Rule .303 Speech," as being extremely arrogant and self-righteous. Even a casual review of great criminal trials will show that defendants who act that way usually wind up paying for it, right or wrong.

The second point is the lynchpin of the three Australians' defense: that they were only following Lord Kitchener's orders when they shot the Boer prisoners. Morant and his adherents claimed this was a verbal order from Kitchener to Morant's friend, the captain that we see getting wounded and captured (and subsequently tortured and murdered by the Boers) at the beginning of the film.

I would like to know the opinion of an expert on Lord Kitchener and the British military of that time about the plausibility of such a high-ranking figure giving such an extraordinary order to a mere captain. From my own experience as a captain in the American Army (mostly during the 1990s) this seems wildly unlikely (I think I spoke to four star commanders on one occasion in all of five years and that was pretty much an exchange of banalities). Overall, I find myself wondering if Morant and company used the death of their commander as an opportunity to create an "I was only following orders" defense, as opposed to a vendetta.

I guess we'll never know.

Rating:
Summary: A very anti-Christian movie
Review: On the surface, Breaker Morant is a simple story of soldiers in the field being asked to operate under impossible moral constraints. They end up being sacrificied on the altar of political expediency.

But director Bruce Beresford does a masterful of job of hiding his anti-christianity in plain sight. For example, he has the chaplain recite a verse that goes something like, "God, you accomplish thy will by war as well as by peace". The impression Beresford leaves is that God makes war for its own sake.

Second, his portrayal of the incident involving the missionary leaves little doubt in the viewer's mind that the missionary had it coming to him. Say what you want about civilians who cross the line in a guerilla war, fair enough. But I find it very disturbing that the director chose a Christian missionary, when he could have chosen anything else on earth, as a character who deserves to be murdered.

Last but not least is Morant's rejection of God again symbolized by the chaplain, just prior to his death. I find this attitude to be incomprehensible. Are Morant and Handcock's deaths unjust, absolutely.

But is it God's fault that men are unjust? Bruce Beresford seems to think so. Unfortunately, he forgets that God gave us the Ten Commandments to follow or not to follow as we choose. That's why we call it "free will", Bruce.

And a pagan is not someone who doesn't believe there's a divine being dispensing justice throughout the world. A pagan is someone who believes that the divine being doesn't care whether or not there is justice throughout the world.

I will say that the film is very powerful, especially the scenes were Morant takes his vengeance on his Boer captives. But overall I must say that I found "Breaker Morant" and it's underlying message to be more upsetting and disturbing than moving.