Lines of Wellington movie

2012 movie starring John Malkovich. Anyone seen it? Is it any good?

Martin (J)

I've never heard of it. I'll grab a copy and report back.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/lines-of-wellington-venice-review-367695

Bravo that man!

Martin (J)

I watched about 45 minutes of it and can't recommend it at all. It was a made for TV miniseries re-edited into a movie so it has TV production values (military units of 100 men, armies of 300 men, etc) and feels a lot like a Portuguese version of Sharpe.

The story is told in a very traditional manner and the person who is supposed to be Wellington (at least I think he is as he's seen a lot, so I guess it must be) is downright weird. He looks about 70, double chins, huge bags under his eyes, has long unkempt straggly grey hair, is overweight and very bad tempered. I don't know what biographical sources they pulled the character notes from to depict him but its none of the books I've read!

Massena is depicted as a mannerless pig (which doesn't hold up against what I've read about him) and all the French are nasty in the way WW2 Germans are always shown as nasty in war films from a certain period. A few historical errors right from the opening scene. Just not really saying anything new or special this one. Grab a free copy via download if you can, otherwise avoid.

Thanks for doing the recce.

It certainly sounds like one to miss.

Martin (J)

A much finer movie and available for free on you tube. One of my favourites growing up is Waterloo. Check it out with a cast of thousands. Great charges with horse and aerial shots as they dash themselves onto British Squares.

Yeah, the Rod Steiger and Christopher Plummer Waterloo version had its 'issues' but its truly one of the better black-powder war movies because it was filmed in the Crimea with literally tens of thousands of Russian soldiers as the armies. I have issues with it over the sun-baked terrain and the exploding artillery shells and the extremely hilly terrain but overall its a damn fine spectacle. Steiger and Plummer summarise the main protagonists well.

Its one of those movies you need to just sit back and enjoy and take your wargamer's anorak off for and not fuss over the details

Anorak? Around here we wear different hats. Now I can understand how you might want to avoid that expression given your queen's questionable taste in them. But an anorak...