Gallipoli Details

[Highly rated reviewer]

And they're welcome to it.

I hate Mel Gibson with a passion you can only dream of. He portrays the English as murderers and philanderers far too often and it’s obvious he has a real problem with us. Take Braveheart, The Patriot and there’s even a comment in this (I’m sure you can find more in other movies). If you're English - try to forget Mel's pathological hatred of us for a couple of hours.

Overall, Gallipoli is a reasonable film and is two soldiers' story about the Gallipoli campaign in 1915, for the purpose of opening a new front in Sourtheast Europe and Asia Minor to break the deadlock of the trenches in the West and failed.

About the first half takes place in Australia, then there is a training sequence in Egypt where the Allies had a staging area prior to crossing the Med to the forward area on the Gallipoli Peninsula and it all just moves a little too slowly. The film tended to get lost in the limbo between being a story about the relationships between the two leads (with the war as scenery) AND being a war movie with the Aussie mates as the backdrop.

Though undeniably well-intentioned, 'Gallipoli' just isn't as wholly compelling as it should be. It seems to ramble on for an inexcusably long amount of time, getting lost in too many side trips, before finally hitting its target.

There are also many factual flaws regarding this film, that pretty much turns it into a Brit bashing exercise. Where were the Lancashire Fusiliers, Royal Munsters and the Dublin Fusiliers ? The Lancashire Fusiliers were cut to pieces by the barbed wire placed in the sea and the Royal Munsters and Dublin fusiliers were picked off one by one as soon as they came off the ship. Yet no mention in the film. When the Aussies go over the top, where were the British, the French and the Irish ? We were there. The film shows British officers giving the order to attack when in fact it was the ANZACS own brigadier!! All in all, the British lost more than 21,000 men in Gallipoli, but no reference whatsoever.

That said, Mel did put in a good performance as did Mark Lee

Beautiful film

A touching tale of camaraderie and courage in the historical context of the ANZACS being sent to their death in Gallipoli in World War I. The cinematography is beautiful, as are the two young stars!