stuart-halliday

I'm pulled two ways by this film. I've seen it several times over the course of the last 40 years. Visually it is stunning. The acting is really good, especially from Eastwood and Burton. I have to say though that I enjoyed the book a lot more as it concentrated more specifically on the intrigue rather than cramming in as much killing as possible. As regards the kill count this for me was the first war movie that ran away with the idea of slaughter on a mass scale, of killing and mayhem for its own sake. To this extent it was the forerunner of the Rambo series; even of the recent re-make of 'Ingloureous Basterds'. In the book the Burton character actually saves a young German soldier who is about the get burned - the complete antithesis of the film. A lot of people who have reviewed this film have said that it would be impossible for so many of the enemy to be killed by so few. I disagree. The allied team were professional assassins unlike the Germans most of whom had probably never seen action. Moreover, the Burton and Eastwood characters were dressed in German uniforms which gave them a decided edge (this made it murder in terms of the Geneva convention, by the way!). I also found it difficult to imagine that such a plan as this could have worked, despite the blips that took place, and ended up with the team safely on board the Junker with the plan accomplished. When you think how military intelligence tended to mess up even the most straight-forward of plans, it does make this convoluted scenario seem even more unbelievable. The whole thing snowballed so much that I ended up feeling really sorry for the German blokes - they were only inexperienced servicemen (probably not Nazis) getting shot to bits by a team of professional assassins, not really knowing what had hit them. As I said, even though I thought Eastwood acted really well, his character just got my goat. He really seemed to be enjoying himself. God help me, I ended up hoping he'd get a bullet where it would do him least good and maybe that would wipe that sadistic half-smirk off his face.

First I have to say that I enjoyed this film, but I have a couple of persnickety questions though about native American tribes. 1) Why was the main tribe changed from Comanche (as in the book) to Lakota (Sioux) for the film? 2) Why does Hollywood always seem to cast the Pawnee as the villains? This was the case in this film and in others - Little Big Man immediately springs to mind - again, in the film version, the Pawnee replaced Cheyenne as the murders of Jack Crabb's family.

As far as I can make out, the Pawnee gave great service to the US as army scouts. I would have thought they deserve some recognition by Hollywood, rather than always being cast in the role of villain. Seems a little ungrateful? Just a thought

Having watched this film for the first time (we had some Scots friends staying and they wanted me to see it) I have to say that I was not especially impressed. Having read some reviews calling it the greatest film ever, I was surprised by how inadequate it was in terms of the production. The battle scenes gave full opportunity for Mel to vent his hatred of the English in graphic form (I bet he wished the swords were real!) but I still found it largely lacking in both sentiment and reality. Oh, I know we complainants are constantly exhorted to look on this as a film (i.e as a fantasy and not as a documentary etc), but I'm afraid can't, entirely. There is a strong political subtext and message in this film which does have modern implications for people in the UK. For these reasons alone, we do need to take it seriously. I think the effect that the movie has had on people, especially as regards the liberties taken with historical characters, concerned me a lot more than the film itself. The opinions appearing in some of the reviews reinforced my worries.I was really concerned by the way people seem to have established very fixed opinions about events and characters of which they admittedly know little, apart from the information they are given in the course of this film. This is totally bizarre. History seems to be the only academic discipline in which this occurs and which is accordingly trivialised to such an extent. Few people would take such liberties with a topic involving other subjects - Science or medicine,for example. Some of the opinions about Edward I, for instance, are quite extreme - 'epitomy of evil','monster' 'tyrant' etc. Don't you think people should maybe do a bit of further reading before applying such epithets? Edward I deserves better than this pathetic bit of character assassination. He was a strong medieval King -intelligent, personally brave, ruthless, learned, pious and a positive and faithful husband (both his wives absolutely adored him). Like most people, his character was a mixture. Most of his successful counterparts, Phillip IV of France and Robert I (the Bruce) of Scotland were equally determined and certainly just as cruel when the need arose. If we're talking about more recent comparisons I think Abraham Lincoln might well fit the bill. Lincoln was basically a good man, but was driven to extremes by the political position in which he found himself. Like Edward I he was equally determined to protect his country by the establishment (or re-establishment) of a state of union, and definitely was, despite his wit and geniality, equally ruthless in achieving what he saw as necessary for the good of his country. I do realise that this is a film and that films need heroes and villains. That's fine as long as they are mythical villains such as Lex Luthor or the Riddler; my point is that if you want to assess a proper historical character, and publicise those assumptions on a public forum, maybe you should do a bit of background reading and not base your opinion entirely on a highly biased, third-rate Hollywood epic