The Unknown Soldier

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.

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

Even with 2 bottles of warm Vodka in my belly I couldn't enjoy this lousy movie. I had to smoke a joint and constantly play with myself to keep myself entertained through the whole ordeal.

Why is there no music in this movie?

Why is it filmed with no filters on the camera? The only other kinds of movies that don't use filters are soap operas ans porno movies?

Was the producer who did this, was he a high school student or what?

what was with those cheap costumes?

why did the characters spend so much time just talking about their nieces and nephews and farms and barns? It's Just Stupid

why was that nurse going around having sex with those hospital patients?

Someone needs to consider actually having a plot the nest time they want to make a movie.

I rather swallow lysol down my throat, and choke myself raw than to ever sit through this terrible move again. - because it would be less painful

sucked, sucked, oh dear God this movie sucked and it sucked bad. It was filmed like a soap opera(or like a home movie), and the actors keep looking up at the camera. I've seen high school productions that weren't this bad. That was the first clue that this was a very low budget cheaply made film.

1st- why was the nurse going around having sex with wounded soldiers in the hospital in the first place.

2nd- The main character lost his memory, and yet he fell in love with his nurse. (despite the fact that he knew that she was going around and sleeping with the patients in hospital). He isn't shell shocked! ! ! He is just stupid, unless his #1 goal in life is to catch V.D.

3RD- Its war!, so why is everyone on the battlefield so squeaky clean and hair is perfect. Those uniforms looked as if they just left the dry cleaners.

4th- No real battle scenes, just a few glimpses of them in a trench as you hear bombs and machine gun fire.

did adults really make this movie? Sure as hell don't look like it

this movie must be super insulting to the good people of Great Brittian, to see their proud soldiers and dedicated nurses depicted the way this movie depicts them. This is an outrage(and I'm not even British)