jjnxn-1
Sad, extremely well acted tale of the senselessness of war and one family's experience. The father in this story is famous but it doesn't make their struggles any less universal. Daniel Radcliffe is terrific once again showing that he will be able to have a lifelong career far removed from Harry Potter. This is really a four person story and he is matched in excellence by the other three players, David Haig, Kim Cattrall and Carey Mulligan. Kim completely moves away from her Sex and the City persona with a performance of quiet control. She's always been a versatile actress but her identification with Samantha is such that her former more varied work is often forgotten. A very moving story presented with great skill.
MartinHafer
"My Boy Jack" is set during WWI--a war in which many millions of young men were killed for absolutely nothing (between 5-6 million of these were Brits). However, instead of being the story about a battle or large groups of men, it's about one individual--Jack Kipling, the only son of Rudyard Kipling. What makes it so compelling is that Jack shouldn't have even been in action--he was practically blind and had been repeatedly rejected for service. But, since his father was a public figure and had pushed so much for the war as well as the whole 'duty to King and country' rot, it wasn't surprising that the boy felt compelled to push and push to get into the thick of the action. What happens next isn't at all surprising--and gives his family a chance to reassess their values and commitment to the cause as well as their own part in the tragedy.This is a very effective film. Much of it is because of the fine acting by Daniel Ratcliffe (as Jack), Carey Mulligan, Kim Cattrall (as his American mother) and David Haig as Rudyard Kipling. What makes it a little more interesting is that the true story was based on a play written by Haig himself. Overall, it's a wonderful but incredibly sad film that puts an individual face on tragedy. Well worth seeing and filled with emotion--so much so that you really should have some Kleenex handy. One of the better made for TV movies I have seen.
Gunn
Although it starts out with author Rudyard Kipling as a gung-ho imperialist, there is redemption in its final scenes as he realizes the consequences of his pride. As said, it is an excellent film in all respects: acting, especially by David Haig as Rudyard Kipling, who also wrote the screenplay equally impressively. The music score by Adrian Johnston is both rich and somber and ultimately moving. The cinematography is stunningly beautiful and the art direction is brilliant and gritty. Daniel Radcliffe (John 'Jack' Kipling) is more than Harry Potter and shows his acting chops here, as do Kim Cattrall (Caroline Kipling), Carey Mulligan (Elsie 'Bird' Kipling) and Martin McCann (Bowe of the Irish Guard), who relates the details of what happened to Jack. This is an entertaining message movie.
classicalsteve
The first important role for Daniel Radcliffe as an actor was certainly his opportunity to play Harry Potter, the magical boy attending a parochial school for wizards. His second may be this role as a young officer commissioned to fight and risk his life in the Great War. This part allowed Radcliffe to spread his acting wings and prove he has a range and ability that goes beyond Hogwarts. Radcliffe will probably always be grateful to Harry Potter but he needed a role to branch out into other challenging worlds.The setting is a 180-degree turn from Harry Potter: the early days of World War I in Britain, circa 1914. As the title character of a period piece, Radcliffe plays Jack Kipling, a young man caught up in the fervor that swept British youth at the outbreak of the "war to end all wars". The army at first rejects him because of his eyesight, but his father, the immortal Rudyard Kipling, played with equal fervor by David Haig, pulls certain strings to get his son into basic training and eventually the western front. But his wife, played brilliantly by Kim Cattrall, and their daughter, played with beautiful subtlety by Carey Mulligan, are devastated by their attitude about Jack's entering the war.In a particularly fine sequence of scenes, when Radcliffe leaves his family to enter basic training, he seems like a boy about to go to school for the first time. But when he returns home as an officer, his demeanor has become that of a man. Radcliffe does a fine job of displaying the subtle transformation from adolescence to maturity. Jack becomes an officer before he is 18 years old. The film then moves between the home of the Kiplings in a beautiful manor in rural England and the devastating world of trench warfare on the western front.A fine film all around, and again, a breath of fresh air for the likes of Radcliffe who has proved that he can play parts quite removed from fantasy. Radcliffe will probably enjoy a long and fruitful career. Harry Potter certainly spring-boarded him into an acting career. But Jack Kipling helped him establish that he can swim in deeper waters.
AD
