| Gallipoli | | Cast : | Mark Lee, Mel Gibson | | Director : | Peter Weir | | Studio : | Paramount Studio | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Dolby | | Released Date : | August 28, 1981 | | DVD Released Date : | April 01, 2003 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), English (Original Language), French (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | PG (Parental Guidance Suggested) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | August 01, 2005 | | Summary | history | Content
 | Ok film may not be very accurate, It is know now that it was an British officer who stopped the "over the top mentality"
But lets take a look at it this way so many young people died on both sides , it's pity they didn't keep playing soccer like they did before , Lest we forget because if we do it will happen again and again |
| Rating | | | Date | June 21, 2005 | | Summary | An Almost Forgotten Battle in an Almost Forgotten War - The human side | Content
| If the American Civil War was terrible, and it was, the "forgotten" or "ignored" war we call World War I was even more so. And as much as any battle in that "forgotten" and "ignored" war; Gallipoli is probably one of the most ignored and forgotten except in Australia, where this film was made, and New Zealand.
I did not see Gallipoli when the movie first came out in 1981, but recently bought the DVD out of historical interest and a curiosity regarding the acting skills of a much younger Mel Gibson. This is not a "kids" movie, and though rated PG, (rough language and minimal nudity), there is also an intense emotional level to the last half of the film that parents should also be aware of.
This movie does an excellent job of showing the human side of war. That human side takes up a good part of the 111 minutes on the DVD version, and at times the pace of the story gets a little slow. You see the Australian "home front", far from the trenches of Europe. The newspaper gives accounts of the latest news of the ANZAC movements and battles. Two young men, (Mel Gibson and Mark Lee), met and become friends. They try to enlist together but end up in separate units. Other comrades enlist also. Both units end up in Egypt and in the course of training the two friends become reunited. Eventually one is able to transfer to the other's unit.
The actual battle scenes come into the movie rather abruptly. One moment you're at a ballroom scene in Egypt, and the next you're in a boat heading to the shores at Gallipoli. The encampment on the shore is lit up with strings of light bulbs, reminiscent of a crowded carnival midway. Grim "carnival" indeed as occasional enemy shells come screeching into the encampment area, and you see the wounded on litters or shuffling around with their assorted array of bandages. You don't see the dead, though in one trench scene a soldier shakes the protruding hand of a dead man and says, "Glad to met you."
I am not so sure that the British and ANZAC troops lost at Gallipoli due to superior Turkish arms and troops. The Turks did have the advantage of the high ground, but Allied failure was due as much to an inept higher command as anything else. The most glaring omission of command illustrated in the movie was the failure to synchronise the watches of the commanding officers responsible for the attack against a fortified Turkish position. The plan, as conceived would have worked, but a several minute discrepancy between the watches of the two officers became deadly. There was also the failure of the immediate superior officer to recognize the quickly changing face of the situation and his over riding the inferior officer actually on the scene.
As the decimated troops prepare for one last desperate charge, they know it is to death. The camera flashes from one man to another as they quickly scrawl that last note home to loved ones, strip off valued personal possessions to leave in the trench with those notes; and we see on their faces the resignation and foreboding realization that this was it. They would go over the top and not return. They were to be fed as cannon fodder to the scourge of war. The commanding officer on the scene swears he will not ask his men to do something he himself would not do, and he makes his preparations to go with them.
The ending was one of the most abrupt and saddest endings I have ever seen in a lifetime of movies. The emotional shock packed into the way this movie ends brought me to tears.
General William T Sherman, USA, once said, "War is hell." That is a true objective statement that has nothing to do with being "pro" or "anti" war. The truth of Sherman's observation was glaringly and vividly portrayed in the trenches of WWI, and Gallipoli was a prime example. Peter Weir did an effective job in bringing that to the screen, and a young Mel Gibson turned in one of his best ever performances.
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| Rating | | | Date | June 10, 2005 | | Summary | Yet Another AWFUL Australian Movie!!! | Content
| This movie stars Mel Gibson and David Argue whose performances in this film are pure ham , sliced off the bone. It concerns a disastrous invasion of the shores of Gallipoli by Australian soldiers who no doubt enlisted so they could kill some foreigners and maybe get to date some women from other countries.I give this film 5 stars because Mel went on to make better films than this. |
| Rating | | | Date | May 29, 2005 | | Summary | Patriotism and Heroism or ignorance and peer pressure. | Content
| (Spoilers) I've always felt that "Gallipoli" was an extremely underrated film. Despite being early in Mel Gibson's career I felt it was his best movie still to date (also Peter Weir's).
The film starts with two talented sprinters who almost instantly become friends. One of them, Archy Hamilton (Mark Lee) is almost eighteen and dying to get out of the remote outback of Australia and see the world, go on adventures etc. He cuts out dramatic newspaper clippings from WWI which is at it's peak at the time. He sees enlisting into the cavalry (Australian lighthorse) as his ticket out of his boredom. Ironically despite wanting to join the army, the film shows that he has absolutely no idea how exactly the war even started. When asked by a drifter how it began he claims "I'm not sure, but it was the German's fault". He's simply a naive kid who has no idea what he's about to get himself into and who believes he's indestructable. He's after some vauge adventure that he has in his head (a reason that many young people enlist to go to war.)
The Mel Gibson character (Frank Dunne) is the smarter of the two. He believes the war is a British conflict that has nothing to do with Australia. Much of the social animosity that exists between Australia and Britain is expressed through his character. However after his friends all decide to enlist along with his new friend Archie, he finally succumbs to the peer-pressure and enlists himself (which is another reason why many young people end up in wars). However he enlists reluctantly and is more realistic about what lays ahead for him.
(Spoilers)...The friendship between the two young men is very touching and is the centerpiece of the whole movie. When the two are inevitably sent to the trenches, the reality really begins to sink in for the Frank character. Finally at the very end, Archie's dreams of glory are dashed when he realizes that he's basically about to be used as nothing but cannon fodder for a very incompetently planned offensive.
This film doesn't have the gore that "Saving Private Ryan" or "Black Hawk Down" has, but the scenes of warfare are extremely disturbing and emotional nonetheless. The feeling of waste as wave after wave of troops are gunned down is gripping. Easily my favorite war film. |
| Rating | | | Date | April 28, 2005 | | Summary | No Comparison to US Civil War, but Good Movie Still.... | Content
| Sorry Matt Heller, but Gallipoli nowhere near approached US Civil War casualty levels...not that any battle/war should be proud of having more casulaties than another as if its some contest. But just to set the record straight: Total Australian casulaties for an 8 month period at Gallipoli was 28,150, while the USA and CSA casualties in ONE DAY of fighting at Antietam, Maryland in 1862 was 26,134. For the entire Gallipoli Campaign (Turks and Allies) deaths were 130,764. For the entire US Civil War (US and CSA) deaths totalled 620,000.
This movie looks past the numbers though, because as we all know numbers just become statistics, but individuals become tragedies. There is almost less distance in the way we think of 100,000 versus 1,000,000 than we do when we just think of the distance between 1 and 2. This movie reminds us of the importance of that. There is a story and lesson behind every loss of life. |
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