Entertaining, but not great

Rating: Null/10 (9 July 2000)

There are a few things that really dragged this movie down, and really kept it from being a very very good movie. First, there were too many melodramatic scenes. I know this was a movie about war, and of course there would be many emotionally gripping parts, but I think they were terribly overdone to the point of being silly.
But maybe the overly-dramatic scenes seemed that way because they have been done in other films (especially Mel Gibson movies) over and over again. The first thing that pops in my mind is the standard "Nooooo!" in slow-motion as someone is diving -too late- towards someone as they are being shot, stabbed, etc. Also the "family man is reluctantly dragged into war, and, against all odds, winds up leading a rag-tag army to victory over the British" is quite unoriginal now that "Braveheart" has been around for a while and also with the new arrival of "Gladiator", although there were no English 'bad guys' in that one.
Also, I think the love scene with the Aunt was superfluous to the plot and was quite frankly very boring.
But the rest of the film was good. I was impressed with the sense of realty in some of the war scenes. It was very gut-wrenching and believable.
In all, I believe it deserved a 6 out of 10 - above average, but only slightly so.