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Summary: Jeremy Northam is amazing in this atypical Mamet offering.
Review: I will go see anything David Mamet does. I love the halting, intentionally metric performances he requires of his actors. I loved Glengarry Glen Ross and even Oleanna (despite its weak attempt to tackle the subject of sexual harassment) due to the jazz-like dialogue.This movie doesn't share that extremely stylistic component that says "Mamet". It's a pretty simple story and truthfully there's not all that much to it. But what I liked was the sort of ambiguous posture of the Winslow boy himself, along with an amazing, smoldering performance by Jeremy Northam. I don't know why this guy isn't more famous. He was the undisputed star of "An Ideal Husband" more recently and received like fourth billing. This is a lovely quiet movie and I recommend it both on its own literary merits as well as because Northam is great.
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Summary: One of the worst DVD Transfers ever....
Review: The image quality of this DVD is completely out of focus, as if the film was just shy of the proper distance when making the transfer. The result is an unwatchable blurry disaster. The film/director also uses a good deal of focus "pulls" which make the blurriness even more noticeable... The camera just seems to shift from one blurry actor in the foreground to a transitional focus to another blurry actor in the background -- creating one big soupy mess. The Bottom Line: If you haven't purchased it: Caveat Emptor. If you have: either A: Try to get your money back. or B: Let the distributors/studio know that we are not going to pay for their lack of care and quality control. I'm amazed that this was allowed out for public consumption.
Rating: 
Summary: Please don't call this a costume drama
Review: For someone who is very critical of movies, I believe THE WINSLOW BOY approaches perfection. This is no arid costume drama but cinematic chamber music that just happens to be set in Edwardian England. For a plot and setting of this sort, one might expect certain production and dramatic conventions, but Mamet's interpretation defies these all. Hawthorne's paterfamilias is not paternalistic, Pidgeon's suffragette is not shrill..one could go on and on. This defiance of convention isn't contrariness, but a refusal to submit to type. Mamet demonstrates how a refusal to submit quietly to a wrong both financially and emotionally stresses a tightly-knit family--pictures disappear from the wall in later scenes, Gemma Jones provides a wonderfully calibrated scene of frustration with Hawthorne. What the Edwardian setting does provide is, interestingly, good manners. In this drama, manners aren't an arch or ironic cover, but a means of prolonging the discourse when duress might excuse a shrill ending of the conversation. The transfer to DVD does indeed seem a bit fuzzy, but the film itself is worth owning in spite of this issue.
Rating:
Summary: Intelligent Simplicity
Review: The Winslow Boy is a very good film. Its characters are intelligent and the movie is well paced. There are several threads to this story, but David Mamet handles each with simplicity which keeps the movie from becoming convoluted. Jeremy Northam is excellent as Sir Robert Morton. Highly recommended especially if you like British style films.
Rating: 
Summary: visual quality not enhanced by DVD format: I am chocked.
Review: I saw this movie 6 months ago in a theater and was awed by its quality: not just the unfolding of the story, the crisp dialog, the restrain and efficiency of means, but also the great visual beauty of it, sharpness of details, etc. This DVD, though, looks like a cheap VHS tape visually: what happened? I am awfully disappointed. Somebody, tell me who bungled this gorgeous movie's DVD transfer?
Rating:
Summary: Subtle, evocative, masterful film
Review: Terence Ratigan's 1946 play about the devastating effects that a family's search for justice can cause, a quiet "G" rated period piece in which all the essential action happens off stage, does not immediately strike the viewer as a likely subject matter for David Mamet to film. Yet, the Winslow Boy succeeds magnificently, artfully telling both the principal story and the submerged "real story within the story". The plot is simple--the Winslow boy is expelled from English military school after having been accused of stealing a small postal money order. His family seeks to clear his name, at considerable personal and financial cost. But the playwright and the screenwriter, wisely refrain from any of the courtroom theatrics and Perry Masonesque cross-examinations that such plot material might usually generate. Instead, the movie takes place in the "background" of the effort to clear the boy's name, as we see the way in which the expense and stress of the effort takes a lethal toll on essentially everyone, other than the boy himself. The movie does ask the big questions inherent in the play--"what price justice?". Yet the movie's goal is not to draw easy moral conclusions, but instead to show us the human consequences of moral choices. Rebecca Pidgeon, as the boy's elder sister, is simply stunning, and the pas de deux love story buried deep beneath the surface of the film is brought to life by her understated, tremendously insightful performance. Mamet and Pidgeon understand that the moral dilemmae of this film are set in bold relief by the Edwardian English culture setting in which the film takes place, but they never bathe in the cinematographic fountain of bygone quaintness that have drowned many an earlier film. If you believed that adult films can no longer be made with a "G" rating, you must see this film. Indeed, under every circumstance, you must see this film.
Rating:
Summary: An Unlikely Mamet Classic
Review: Be surprised that this film based on Terence Rattigan's 1946 play is adapted to the screen and directed by David Mamet. Be even more surprised that it's rated "G." But don't miss this gem. Most of the story focuses on the case of a boy accused of stealing a postal order, and its effect on the middle-class Winslow family in 1912 England. The new screen version surpasses the original with the palpable sexual tension between the characters played by Jeremy Northam and Rebecca Pidgeon. The few exchanges between Sir Robert (Northam) and Catherine Winslow (Pidgeon) are skillfully interwoven by Mamet. They're the sexiest couple in recent memory without the lewdness or voyeurism of blockbuster cinema.The DVD features voiceover commentary by Mamet and the main cast. I expected Mamet to be something like Quentin Tarantino's grumpier older brother, but was completely charmed when he introduced himself as "Dave" Mamet and affectionately called Pidgeon "Becks" throughout the commentary. Mamet clearly loved working with every member of his cast (down to the family maid) and directed them to resonant performances. Northam has never been better -- even in more mainstream films like "Emma" or "The Net." If you weren't a fan before, his portrayal of Sir Robert will cinch it.
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Summary: Weak Winslow Remake
Review: I must admit I am more than shocked to read some of these reviews. All those that haven't seen the original starring Robert Donat et al simply haven't lived. Some scenes have been completely desecrated. The Donat "liar and a thief" questioning scene of the young Winslow, is one of the best in movie making history. The equivalent in this remake is so weak that even 'Sir Roberts' attending solicitor also lends a hand in the questioning ! However it may have been David Mamets intention not to even to attempt to try and emulate. Likewise 'Sir Roberts' courtroom speech was completely missed.
Beg, steel or borrow the origianl VHS copy, and if need be go out and buy a VCR just to watch and enjoy this gem. If there is a movie studio lobby somewhere to get 'essentials' like this released on DVD I'll join it ! ! ! !
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Summary: A perfect film !
Review: The honor in the actual times seems to have become a devaluated coin . Words such as Aristos , friendship , honor , have taken a slow boat to China .
Nevertheless there are people in the world who still are guided for an ethics inscribed in the cosmos ; souls who never crossed the Lethes (The forgetful river according to Plato) .
The astonishing mind of this notable screen player and director David Mamet shone with eloquent brightness in this European stylized movie about a debt of honor for a family .
The dramatis personae will seduce you from beginning to end .
Tastefully artistic direction and very well written script make of this film one of the hidden treasures of this year.
Rating:
Summary: A Masterpiece Neutered and Shrunk
Review: David Mamet's version of "The Winslow Boy" quite fails to understand Terence Rattigan's play, from which the film is derived. The film is glued to a one-dimensional stereotype of pre-World War I English behavior, decorous and emotionally suppressed, which defeats the drama at every turn. The play, on the contrary, is not a period piece. It portrays the agony, humiliation, disbelief, indifference, anger, confusion, determination, persistence, idealism, sacrifice, protective love, cynicism, and fear with which a boy's nearest and dearest react to his expulsion from naval cadet school, and the crusade to vindicate him. Their language may be more refined and their emotional expression more controlled than often occurs, but within these limits the range and conflict are substantial. By combining his stereotype with extensive deletions, Mamet cuts off his characters at the knees, if not higher. The father's determination and persistence remain, but most of his tendency to dominate and humiliate is gone. The sister's intelligence, loyalty and tact are there, but not the poignant depth of her love and vulnerability. We see the mother's protective love, but not the formidable passion of her attack against the crusade. The original play feeds the intellect by raising questions about the boy's innocence, and about the worth of the crusade in his behalf; contrary opinions are not merely stated, but supported with cogent reasons. It feeds the soul by raising the banner of doing Right, and facing the substantial sacrifices along the way. It feeds the heart by showing the deep and vulnerable love of a father for his son, of a mother for her family, of a daughter for her fiance, of a family friend for the daughter. All this food is on short ration in Mamet's remake. Rattigan has a fine dramatic sense, which Mamet often spoils. Watch, for example, what should be the most striking scene of the story, a cross-examination of the Winslow boy in the family parlor. England's best trial lawyer is deciding whether to take the case. In the original, the questioning starts quietly but builds to an aggressive harshness that has the boy muddled and crying, and the family angry and alarmed. Whereupon the lawyer, to everyone's surprise, accepts the case, calling the boy "plainly innocent." Mamet doesn't cut the text in this scene, but he does cut way back on the lawyer's aggressiveness and the boy's distress. The dramatic excitement of the original, based on powerful emotional reversals, is mostly lost in the remake. Within the limits of the Mamet stereotype, Nigel Hawthorne as the father and Jeremy Northam as the lawyer are interesting and pleasant to watch. The rest of the cast is not memorable.
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