The Unknown Soldier

first. I am no historian. But I know that it wasn't standard procedure for British nurses to start having sex with the wounded soldiers as the rolled into the hospital. Or if it was then I 've totally confused with the difference between a military hospital and a brothel.

Also there is a complete lack of background music that makes this movie move even slower than it already moves. Its filmed like a soap opera. The actors occasionally glance at the camera from the corner of their eyes. The story just is stupid.

a soldier wounded in battle gets medical treatment, and he suffers from amnesia(he cant remember who he is) and his primary nurse almost immediately begins having sex with him. She also goes around having sex with other wounded soldiers to. But she develops feeling for the man who doesn't know who he is. And he actually falls in love with this soldier whore.

this movie is an embarrassment to the studio that made it, and this movie is insulting to anyone in the military medical field and all copies of this film should be gathered up and burned and any record of it's existence wiped out of the record books.

There are so many things to hate about this movie that I don't know where to start. The acting is pitiful and lousy. The story is just stupid. Its filmed without light filters so it looks like a soap opera or a porno movie, the actors keeps watching the camera or looking at someone who is off camera giving them acting instruction(or who knows). There is no background music. the isn't one battle scene in the entire movie. No special effects at all were used. The costumes look like something left over from a local high school play. They couldn't have spent more than $25.00 on this movie and $10.00 of that went toward buying the film they wasted on it.

do yourself a favor a pretend you never heard of this turd!

this was on PBS here is St Louis last week, and oh my god was it ever so terrible. I hated it. The cameras are filterless and it has the look of an American style soap opera (minus the juicy story lines and the sex).

However the costumes worn by the actors looked chronologically correct. .....but that is all the good that I am going to say about this movie.

it sucked, I mean it really sucked.

there is almost no background music, the acting godawful. You could watch the actors glance up at the camera from time to time. And there is almost zero backgraound music(almost none).

and as for the storyline......so let me get this right....if you got shell shock in World War I, and you forget your idenity, then it becomes your free ticket to start screwing your nurses??? - Oh my God please!...and hell, they didn't even show the sex scenes (it was implied)..gimmie a break!

if it weren't for the camera lighting and the close sets, you would've almost had a feeling that you were watching a home video of a play. ........yes its true.

don't watch this movie. its awful. It makes me wish I had shell shock so I could forget this bastard of a film.

This fine mini-series, directed by David Drury (THE CRY, RHODES, and PRIME SUSPECT 3) is a touching and thought-provoking depiction of the futility of the Great War, a slaughter which wiped out a generation, and changed the role of women forever. Written by Peter Barwood (TV series HEARTBEAT) it includes the cruelty of the courts-martial and executions for desertion, the further losses from the the post-war influenza outbreak, the blurring of class distinctions, and the disappointment of women who must relinquish their wartime jobs to the returning men. Beautifully and sensitively acted by Juliet Aubrey as Carey's strong-willed daughter Sophia in one of her best roles since GO NOW and STILL CRAZY. Sophia plays a Nurse who has suffered her own losses and feels very strongly for the disabled men as they and their families try to adjust to normal life. She falls for one of her patients, the enigmatic Unknown Soldier (Gary Mavers, PEAK PRACTICE's hunk Dr. Attwood) found shell-shocked and wandering naked in No-Man's Land. The men call him Angel, as he saved the life of another officer, but who is he really? Is he an Officer or an enlisted man ? In their efforts to find his real identity he faces the horrors of electric shock therapy, accusations of malingering, threats of being returned immediately to the fighting at the front, court-martial as a deserter, and conflicting witnesses including a couple desperately claiming him as their son. Compared to the epic THE English PATIENT (beautifully filmed but too Hollywood) this is more grittily realistic. Mavers' performance is wooden, and Aubrey is altogether too modern and earnest in her commitment to those men (why is she attracted to Angel?) but the cast includes familiar British faces Frederick Treves, Pip Torrens and Tom Chadbon who are as excellent as ever.

The subject of shell-shock is rarely touched upon in so realistic a fashion. Also, the class distinctions in England are made quite plain in this presentation. If you were an enlisted man during this period of time, 1914-1918, you did not receive the same consideration in a court of justice as an officer in the same army. This policy, I believe continued even up to World War II (1939-1945).

As for medicine, little was known on how to treat shell-shocked men. The administering of electric shock was graphically portrayed. It was not a gentle therapy and many people suffered during this treatment.

All the actors and actresses performed wonderfully. And as someone mentioned, the costumes and scenery appeared very authentic for that time. Oh, in spite of their dedication and intelligence, women were still second class citizens.

All in all, I consider the film a very, very, good one.

I got to see this film(mini-series) for free on my local PBS station on a program called the Exxon-Mobile Masterpiece Theater. I had seen the previews and this film(mini-series)looked interesting to me. First off I will that there were a couple of things about this movie that I did like- such as ,1st class acting by the actors in it. the second thing I will commend this movie for is the costumes.But the Battle scenes are lame, and what few specail effects are used in this film are done poorly. This movie moves at such a slow pace you can totaly miss the first night(last for 2 night-4 hours total)and only watch the second night and not miss any of the story. This movie is an extremely boring waste of time. the plot is simple- A British soldier is wounded in WWI and has amnesia, he is found wondering around on a Battlefield suffering from shell-shock, and he doesn't know who he is, but he is taken into the care of a nurse. he and the nurse fall in love with each other and she helps him to recover his memory. This same storyline could've played out in 45 minutes instead of 4 hours-because there just isn't enough story there for the 4 hours it takes to watch it.-I couldn't help but wonder if this film would've been made at all had it not been for the critical success of "The English Patient" which has a very similar story line and was made only 2 years before this film.(for the record I didn't like "The English Patient" either) Because the acting and costumes are well done, and because we dont see enough films about WWI - I give this film 2 stars out of 5