Powerful subject, weak film

It seems churlish to have a ppp at a film which covers such a traumatic yet heroic subject. However, this film champions the Aussie values of mateship and endurance, and as such falls a long way short of the standards set 30 years ago by 'Gallipoli', while also failing to match the creeping horror of jungle warfare portrayed by the best Vietnam films. Unlike Gallipoli, we have no back story for the main characters and little attempt is made to personalise them. This may have been deliberate on the part of the directors, to emphasis the de-humanising nature of jungle warfare, however as the film is named for a specific unit and the characters are all non-professional reservists with other careers, this seems a strange move. The cinematography is also dull and the film ignores the jungle, a very important element in these films - it is neither the brooding menace of Apocolypse Now/Platoon, nor the beautiful wilderness of 'The Thin Red Line', and the tension missing from the film is partly a result of this. This is a worthy subject and I'm glad that a film has been made about a campaign that the rest of the world outside Australia was probably not aware of. However, it could, and should have been better.