The Bounty

I have seen this film many time over the years and i never get bored of watching Sir Anthony Hopkins give a riveting performance in this classic story of life aboard The Bounty and the events that lead to mutiny.

Mel Gibson plays Fletcher Christian who must watch helplessly as his captain(Hopkins) demoralizes his men and drives them ever closer to the brink of mutiny. The tension builds throughout the film and in no small part to the excellent score. The disgruntled crew has many recognisable faces including Liam Neeson and Bernard Hill which makes the film all the more enjoyable. Daniel Day Lewis is particularly watchable as mr. frier, showing us a rather smug and sometimes fiery officer. The film is shot beautifully and the story is compelling. Even the script holds up in a film where the best performances come from the actors with the least to say.

Being a fan of British naval history, and also a fan of Anthony Hopkins, I love this film. I think it is severely under-rated. The acting (particularly by Hopkins) is superb, and the cinematography and realism are stunning.

Unlike some of the previous comments for this film I think it is pretty loyal to the true historical facts of the real mutiny. Alright, there are a few minor changes to fact, but nothing that radically alters the story. Basically Bligh was a very able and fair captain, who was let down by incompetent officers. Bligh was no more a monster than any other Royal Navy captains, the difference was other Royal Navy Captains had able commissioned officers and a squad of marines to back up their authority. Bligh was on his own, because the admiralty insisted on saving money on the bread-fruit expedition by giving Bligh a small ship and no officers. (All the officers on board were non-commissioned warrant officers, who were not employed by the Royal Navy but were in it for their own advancement, Blight was the only Royal Navy officer). This is what ultimately led to the mutiny. Bligh had no one he could rely on to back up his orders from the Admiralty. Bligh was actually an exponent of modern thinking, and treated his men with much more humanity than other Royal Navy Captains. He had learnt his trade from sailing under Captain Cook.

I think Hopkins manages to capture this in his performance. Bligh was a professional man, who grew increasingly frustrated by the incompetence and laziness of his officers. Hopkins manages to convey this sense of increasing irritation brilliantly. He felt particularly let down by Fletcher Christian, who was his friend and whom he had personally advanced up the ranks. He expected Fletcher to back up his orders, but Fletcher was more interested in his own pleasure with the Tahitian women.

On the journey out the crew were actually very happy and contented, but the trouble began when the crew began to experience the liberties and freedoms of Tahitian life, and they did not want to leave it. Bligh had to force the men to go back to their duty, and instead of having officers to back him up, the officers took the side of the men.

I think the script of this film captures the true story quite well. I saw the Clark Gable version of the story many years ago, and the only thing I remember is the portrayal of Bligh as an irrational monster, with none of the reasons behind his anger explained. In this version I feel Hopkins is more like the real Bligh. An able commander trying to carry out his orders, but let down by those around him.

The confrontation between Bligh and Christian in the captain's cabin the day before the mutiny is one of my favourite movie scenes of all time. Hopkins performance of the captain at the end of his patience is just outstanding. `Oh there are rumblings are there?'. Superb!

The only down side to this film is Mel Gibson. I can't stand the sight of him! Mind you, even he manages to pull of a good performance.

The film ends quite abruptly, with a lot of loose ends. The most fascinating parts of the true story come after the end of the film. I guess the time constraints of the film mean they had to concentrate on just the story of the mutiny.

The mutineers set up a colony on Pitcairn, and ended up all murdering each other until only one survived (Jack Adams). Those that stayed on Tahiti were captured two years later by HMS Pandora which had been dispatched after Bligh got back to England. This ship rounded up about 16 mutineers, and on the way home the Pandora hit a reef off Australia and sunk. The crew had to make an open boat journey to Coupang, the same port that Bligh's life boat had arrived at two years earlier!!

Meanwhile Bligh was promoted and sent off on another Breadfruit exhibition to Tahiti, this time the Admiralty gave him commissioned officers and a squad of marines. This mission succeeded.

When the Breadfruit plants finally reached the slave colonies in the West Indies, the slaves refused to eat the fruit as they disliked the taste. That's irony for you!

The latest retelling of this tale shifts a lot of the blame about the voyage over to Fletcher Christian and the fact that he and a lot of the crew had simply gone native.

One of the great villainous portrayals on the screen is Charles Laughton's Captain Bligh from the stirring 1935 film. Laughton is pretty unforgettable with that jutting lower lip and that bellowing voice at the crew. Anthony Hopkins has given us a kinder, gentler view of Bligh which may be far closer to the facts.

Bligh certainly was a stern taskmaster as a captain of a naval vessel. In fact he served with distinction in several naval battles during the Napoleonic wars. What he unfortunately had was a sarcastic tongue, something not really needed for what in fact was a peaceful voyage to obtain breadfruit plants.

Scurvy which is caused by a Vitamin C deficiency ran rampant on the ocean going ships of the time, none more so than in British ships because they had the most of them. This was a pretty important voyage, to bring back Tahitian breadfruit to see if it could be cultivated in the climate of the United Kingdom. Maybe the mistake was in not sending a civilian ship to do the job, who knows.

Anyway Bligh punished men who got out of line, no more so than what was normal. The problem arose when after months at sea, his crew got just too used to frolicking among the female population of Tahiti. That would also unfortunately include Bligh's second mate Fletcher Christian, played in this version by Mel Gibson.

It wasn't Bligh's fault they lingered in Tahiti, the plants had to be mature enough to stand the voyage to Great Britain. Nevertheless the lack of discipline there, contrasted with what was expected of British seaman on a naval vessel, a return to that life was what led to the mutiny.

Certainly Fletcher Christian by all accounts was a charismatic guy, he would have to have been to get the men to mutiny. He was portrayed by four charismatic actors, Errol Flynn, Clark Gable, Marlon Brando, and now Mel Gibson. Only his intervention prevented the men from killing Bligh and a few others.

What I like most about this version is the fact that it does give due attention to Bligh's remarkable voyage in a long boat to Timor which was some 1500 miles from where he and the loyalists were cast adrift. It was a remarkable piece of seamanship, no mutinies during that voyage.

The luckless Captain Bligh also had the misfortune to be the Governor of New South Wales, appointed by the Crown, and was overthrown there in a power struggle with the merchants of the colony. That didn't help his historical reputation a bit.

Among the crew of the Bounty you will find Daniel Day-Lewis as John Fryer who Bligh replaced mid voyage with Fletcher Christian and Liam Neeson as one of the mutineers. Laurence Olivier plays Admiral Hood who led the court of inquiry that cleared Bligh of blame for the mutiny.

Still Hopkins and Gibson dominate the film with their skills and talents. Who knows who might bring the saga of this troubled ship next to the screen. This story has fascinated us for generations.

I'm only giving this film 8 stars, because as good as it is "the Bounty" still leaves some undeserved blots on the reputation of a great and courageous man. A bit more truth and this film would get a TEN from me.

There have been many film treatments of this amazing story, but only "The Bounty" gets it even halfway right. The 1935 Lawton/Gable "Mutiny on the Bounty" is 49% balderdash and 51% falsehood. The Trevor Howard/Marlon Bando stinker is even less factual. "The Bounty", however is pretty good history in many places, especially Bligh's court-martial and the actual mutiny sequence, which is almost word-for-word what Bligh recorded in his own writings on the matter. The ship itself is correctly represented, right down to the figurehead – a woman in a blue riding habit, which makes no sense until one realizes that HMAV Bounty was originally a merchant ship called the Bethia.

The movie does take liberties with history. Some characters are composites and some important figures are absent entirely. In the plot Bligh seeks out Christian to be his second officer. In reality Christian was a friend of Bligh's wife's family, and it was he who sought a posting on Bounty; Bligh didn't solicit his participation. In fact Bligh jiggered the ship's roster to make room for Christian.

But the worst departure from fact is the business about Cape Horn and circumnavigation. The movie wants us to believe that Bligh chose the route for his own glory. Not true. Bligh complained to the Admiralty about the chosen course before they set sail from England, thinking it too dangerous for such a small vessel. But he was overruled. The return trip was never intended to go by way of Cape Horn. The cargo was breadfruit seedlings, a tropical plant that can't endure the kind of temperatures encountered in the Drake Passage or the Straits of Magellan. Bligh was forbidden to return via this route. Even if he wanted to such a course of action would have ruined his career. Also the mutiny occurred near Tofua, about 1300 miles west of Tahiti, the wrong direction to sail if you're bound for Cape Horn.

Bligh was a man and a professional. Christian was a silly, overwrought upper class schoolboy who committed a vile crime over puppy love of a Polynesian girl. He got away with attempted mass murder, and 200 years later people still praise him. Bligh was a true hero who hasn't got justice yet.

No cast can beat the one in the Bounty. Just look at the list, Anthony Hopkins, Mel Gibson, Bernard Hill, Daniel Day Lewis, Liam Neeson, Laurence Oliver and even a young Neil Morrissey who puts in a good performance. I have seen three versions of The Bounty, the one with Clark Gable, the one with Brando and this and this version directed by Roger Donaldson is by far my favourite because it is so much more darker than the others. For one we have Anthony Hopkins as a caring but ruthless Captain Bligh who is hell bent on his ship sailing around Cape Town or something like that and the shipmen believe that doing it once was bad enough but doing it twice is suicide and that is where the film really kicks off but there are moments of tension between Bligh and Fletcher played by Mel Gibson and that's what makes this film all the more special than its predecessors.

If this film was made today with the same cast then it would not have had the same effect because it would have tried to win over it's audience with it's cast but the likes of Day Lewis, Liam Neeson and Mel Gibson were still unknowns in most countries and it was like an older version of the rat pack as they were the fresh faces coming up in the movies in 80's Hollywood especially for Gibson who just made action in the 80's apart from The Bounty and Gallipoli. What makes this movie all the more better was it's haunting soundtrack by Vangelis. Every scene in the film which contains a piece from the soundtrack is just spine tingling and the scene where Fletcher takes over the ship and the men are gathering together to mutiny is just fantastic.

It's not the best film ever but it feels like it when you watch it but then you take it in and you think of some of the scenes they could have included. A few more scenes between Bligh and Fletcher wouldn't have gone a miss and a bit more on Laurence Oliver's character but what we did see of him was more than enough and I shouldn't complain.