Riders

I haven't read the book, but this mini-series stands as a well-made piece of entertainment. The handsome and dashing, but dastardly, Rupert is contrasted with the home-loving, all-round decent, underdog, Jake. The characters are drawn with a broad brush, but there are many colourful characters, and it's tightly plotted, with unexpected twists. The horses and the men are very good-looking, and Michael Praed and Anthony Calf do a great job as the more complex characters in the story. Great fun altogether.

It surprised me to find only two reviews of this film so far. Bearing in mind that the source novel was on the best-sellers list for ages and selling over a million copies, this film version seems to have been massively overlooked. It is not a bad film but for me, it does not live up to the bonkathon tag much hyped by the popular press.

The characters were well presented and one could not fault the cast in their acting but there was the nagging feeling that the equine world of this film was not a world most people would have noticed had it not been for certain royal personages to be involved in equine events. Still, the horse riding scenes were well done with the stunt people and the actors merging seamlessly together.

The biggest problem for me however was the running time of almost 200 minutes - too long for a film. My feeling is, a mini-series would have been better.

Well, at least it's boring compared to the book. Having read the book it is very hard to watch it in an objective way. The characters aren't very likable and I do like them in the book. The book reads like a very enjoyable Netflix series and the movie just drags on and on... Rupert, except for being blond, doesn't resemble the flamboyante character he is. It's only the spoilt brat he is, but of course that's only one side of him. The only character I liked, was Tory. She felt so real and does resemble the character in the book. The book makes you laugh out loud. Why isn't this adaption able to make me laugh at any point? I hope Disney will try to give Rivals a prequel, because with Rivals they managed to give us the enjoyable encouter the books certainly give. Ode to writer dame Jilly Cooper!!!!

It's always difficult to capture a book as complex as this on-screen as Jilly Cooper's speciality is showing us a set of larger than life characters with genuine human flaws, however within the limitations of film I think they did very well. Yes, OK, they did take a few shortcuts through the plot, but (mostly) that didn't make too much difference to the characterisation and relationships. The lead actors were good and, in particular, Michael Praed as Jake Lovell was extremely engaging and well-realized.

A film which dwells _so much_ on showjumping would fail completely if the riding scenes were not well done, and I'm pleased to say that they were entirely believable and the lead actors genuinely looked as though they knew how to sit on a horse. Congratulations to the stunt team and to the actors.

This was shown on ITV when I was about 14. Not a lot to see or hear on this one, a lot of humping and the lead character (can't remember who exactly) seemed to just bone around all day with countless upper crust women. Being only 14 at the time it was just a question of waiting for the next bit of raunchiness to come along. See those duff Friday night movies on Five? This is a distant relative with a bit more storyline!