Review by Michael Rizzo Chessman - Breaker Morant (Bruce Beresford)

Breaker Morant (1981) Mr. Bruce Beresford Director

This movie speaks to the the very real spirit of the Australian genre in their
rejection of impersonal application of rules and sense of decorum in the face
of the needs of more real ideals of justice at the end of the day, have been for this
reason often considered expendable by the Brits (Gallipoli is another very great
movie on a similar theme) some Australian soldiers during the time of the Boer war
are out on trial for actions they deem to have been defensible, as they were
in fact from their perspective here, "only following orders" to take no prisoners.
The penalty however is death if their orders are subsequently denied as validly
issued at all. A court martial is where the judgment is to be made, in this case
of a sad tale indeed.

The Boer war was a sad chapter in our history. The greatest of our peoples in what
is the leadership of the peoples of Europe - the British and the Dutch of course
(although one cannot lose sight of the French or the Germans as Europe would be
impoverished to the point of being very considerable much less in beauty than it
is) were involved in a war against each other when they should instead have been
friends and partners all along in what was the spirit of Christianly colonization
in other parts of the planet where either would be justified in expansion.

Indeed if you look at where the best of people of the traditions I speak of are
now extant on this earth, they are in fact not too far from one another - I refer
of course to the very greatest peoples of Australia, and the equally nice peoples
of South Africa who have long since but the borer war behind them to become a
lovely product of a very compatible breed destined for greatness in mutual
company.

Michael Rizzo Chessman
michael@moviesbyrizzo.info