Breaker Morant (DVD, 1999)

This could well be the best movie ever to come from Australia. For my money it is the finest war film, and the most compelling anti-war film ever made. It deservedly won 10 Austrailian Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Actor for Edward Woodward. Based on true events from England's Boer War in South Africa (and the autobiography "Scapegoats of the Empire"), it tells the story of three soldiers courtmartialled for murder and mistreatment of prisoners, despite orders from the high command to kill prisoners taken in the field. From a military perspective, the Brits were being confronted with and responding to a new kind of combat, guerilla tactics, and were also trying to appease other world powers, out to make their own empires. This was a cynical show-trial, used primarilly to bring about peace negotiations. Bruce Beresford's direction is gripping. Every actor is superb, especially Woodward and Jack Thompson as the impassioned defense counsul; really there isn't a false note in the entire film. The hypocrisy and futility of war are laid out in a most entertaining, thought provoking and adventurous treatment. Having seen this a couple dozen times, I am no less enthralled or affected seeing it again. An absolute must-see film.

'Breaker' Morant is a classic courtroom drama about war, duty, and politics set during the Boer War (1899-1902). Compared with Kubrick's Paths of Glory, "Morant" is relevant beyond its time and place. Director Beresford (Driving Miss Daisy) is one of the filmakers involved in the Australian New Wave of the 1980's. Edward Woodward and the rest of the cast is excellent, and the production gives a real sense of turn-of-the-20th-Century South Africa. Based on real events, "Morant" is a movie that will make you think.

This movie speaks to the the very real spirit of the Australian genre in their rejection of impersonal application of rules and sense of decorum in the face of the needs of real and true humane and indeed beautifully human ideals of justice and goodness at the end of the day. Considered expendable by the Brits (Gallipoli is another very great movie on a similar theme) some Australian soldiers during the time of the boer war are out on trial for actions they deem to have been defensible. In order to make expediency reign over real truth and fair play, The British are out to make martyrs of them and in the end you find yourself fighting the system in favour in individual heroism, something the Aussies are known for as a great peoples indeed.

If you are a scholar of the Anglo-Boer war, you will appreciate this movie. Although the Boers do not feature highly, the court room drama does reveal the dirty business of war; particularly how the British behaved. This movie is certainly worthy of being in your collection.

A great movie that I've only recently seen for the first time. Along the lines of "A Few Good Men," the film shows how the military way is different from the civilan way and that many good men get lost in the shuffle while following orders from their "superiors." Well acted and well filmed, yet, for those who are worried that it's a "war film," you shouldn't be. Although there are a few fight scenes, they are done as flashbacks and with little direct violence and absent of gore. The movie is more about the trial (with great dialogue) and the relationship between the people involved. Watch it and you'll see.