Year:
2001
Studio:
Picture Palace
Movie:
4/5
DVD:
0/5
This collector's
edition assembles the fourteen Sharpe movies made in Great Britain from
1993 to 1997. Each 100 minute movie is based on one of the Sharpe books
by Bernard Cornwell. Richard Sharpe is played by Sean Bean and he is
accompanied by Patrick Harper (Daragh O'Malley).
Except for the last two, the movies are set in Spain during the
Peninsular War against Napoleon. Sharpe starts out as an sergeant in
Wellington's army. In the first movie he saves Wellington's life and is
field promoted to Lieutenant. Although it's something that Sharpe has
always dreamed about he quickly finds out -- and throughout the series
he has to deal with this -- that an officer raised from the ranks is
hated by all, though in the movies it's usually his fellow officers
heaping the most contempt on Sharpe.
Sharpe is given a platoon of riflemen from the 95th Regiment. There he
meets Sergeant Patrick Harper and several other riflemen that appear
throught the series. But as time goes on we see less and less of the
riflemen until in the final movie only two of the companions remain:
Privates Hagman (John Tams) and Harris (Jason Salkey).
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The movies are
quite entertaining. Very much adventure with a good feel for the times.
Production values are made-for-British-television which is not great.
This is especially true in battle scenes where there are few extras.
Also the hand-to-hand fighting looks awfully fake.
Sharpe is a hero who is a hero because of his baser character. He is
more ruthless and nastier and dirtier than his opponents and that's why
he wins. He's also honorable in his own way and can be kind and caring.
There are times though when I thought he was getting a bit too
superhuman in his ability to power through trouble -- Sharpe not being
the kind of person that uses much subtlety.
The collector's edition has the 14 Sharpe movies, each in their retail
packaging. The annoying thing here is that each movie starts out with a
4 minute commercial for the series. There is also a 15th DVD which
amounts to nothing more than a 90 minute recounting of the series using
clips from the series. And there is also a map of Europe in 1812 which
is nice. The container is a small wooden locker which I guess is
supposed to replicate a period locker.
Overall it's an excellent series to buy. I'd say it's probably cheaper
to buy the individual videos at $10 a pop than the series at $200,
though shipping costs can change that. The 15th video and 1812 map are
not worth the extra $60.
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