GusF I was really looking forward to this film but it was a major, major disappointment. In fact, I utterly despised this film. I thought that it was absolutely dreadful from start to finish. It was incredibly boring and horrendously written. I understand what they were going for in (accurately) depicting the British military establishment as an overly bureaucratic, incompetent mess which seemed to think that they were still fighting Napoleon but not one of these scenes - or any other scenes in the entire film, for that matter - were in any way interesting. As with "Battle of Britain", I had no interest in any of the poorly written, distracting, clichéd, melodramatic "romantic" stuff. The fact that the people involved were real didn't make these scenes any more bearable. The Crimean War does not even begin until almost a full hour into the film. Admittedly, the details of the war are not as popularly known as those of the two world wars but it still seemed excessive. 20 minutes would have been more than enough.The film is almost as big a mess as said military establishment. There is no flair or energy in Tony Richardson's direction and it is not a particularly good looking film. It has a great cast such as John Gielgud, Vanessa and Corin Redgrave, Trevor Howard, Harry Andrews and T.P. McKenna but it takes more than good acting to save it a film this bad. Conversely, David Hemmings is not a good leading man as Captain Louis Nolan. I'm a leftie pacifist so I certainly agreed with the film's anti-war stance and it was likely intended as an anti-Vietnam War allegory but I would have preferred a good film over...this. If you want an excellent anti-war film, watch "Oh! What a Lovely War" (which also features Gielgud and the Redgraves). If you want an excellent film about a failed military operation, watch "A Bridge Too Far". Both of those films are directed by Richard Attenborough, probably the best British director of his generation.The only thing that I really loved about the film were the "Punch"-esque animations. Actually, I not only loved them but I adored them. However, they took up about three minutes of a well over two hour film. Let's see. Besides that and some of the acting, what else did I like about the film?....Um, there were some nice dogs in it. I love dogs. Yeah...At one point, Nolan says, "I had such hopes of this war, Morris." I know how he felt. I had such hopes for this film! Out of a grand total of 430 films since January 2014, I was more disappointed with this film than any other. Even "Excalibur", yet another Corin Redgrave film. However, there were a few - though only a few - which were worse.The only reason that I didn't stop watching after about 40 minutes is that I promised myself that I would watch every single film from beginning to end no matter what. In retrospect, I sort of wish that I had as 2+ hours of this awful rubbish was a very painful experience. If it were not for the talent or at least basic competence of most of the actors involved, I would give it a lower score. To coin a phrase, someone had blundered. On the bright side, I have not gotten this much pleasure out of writing a scathing review in about three years!

denis888 Awful movie. Just plainly awful. I do not know even where to begin. The whole feeling is set wrong, from the very beginning, with all its silly and utterly unnecessary cartoon segues, the film takes a wrong pace and never gets it right. The thick British accents are at least tiresome, and often they sound false. OK, maybe this is how the filmmakers wanted to show the false atmosphere of the upper class people, maybe. Nut it is all so overwrought and exaggerated that it serves all the wrong course. Vanessa Redgrave may be sweet there but never captivating. Two endless hours linger and drag till the war begins. And then, huge laughs begin. I never laughed so out loud as when I saw the way they depicted Russian army, and especially Cossack cavalry. Man, those uniforms, those hats, those lancets! Where did they get them? I wonder whey they didn't put bears in ushankas on bikes with jugs of vodka galore. Russian army was not clad like this, and was not behaving like this. The battles are one endless scream and then, most inappropriately, fun. This is so - the battles are simply sunny to watch, as the film crew fails to deliver real suspense and pain. Even the charge at the end is very fragmentary and badly cut. Russians never speak like this and the wording is all wrong. I am ending on one note - this is pathetic mess. Never watch it.

Robert J. Maxwell A bloody war, the reasons for which seem almost to have been made up after the decision to wage it. There were lies, rumors, and bickering at the top. The Russians might come south and take Turkey, which would threaten the British passage to India somehow. No one seems to have been very clear about the causes. Perhaps it had to do more with national honor during the Victorian period. (This is 1859.) Maybe it had something to do with promotion in the officer corps, with combat experience playing a part. The populace was stirred up by the media and generally seems to have been enthusiastic about the prospect of great battles and great victories. Such a calamity could never happen today.Every movie about war reflects the period in which it was made, and it's interesting to compare this film, made in 1968, with the 1936 version starring Errol Flynn and directed by Michael Curtiz. The earlier film is much more exciting and far less ambiguous. We are good and they are evil. And the evil ones aren't the Russians (who are hardly mentioned) but some fictional tribe of Islamic terrorists. In the 1930s, the Russians had not yet become our enemies and were about to become our Allies.In 1968, the movie was a comment on the widespread anti-war sentiment that was generated by a war in Vietnam whose means and objectives no one seemed able to clarify. Was it really all about "body counts"? Were we really trying to kill more "communists" than they were able to kill our own troops? The controversy continues.The apparently sensible hero of this tale is Nolan, played by David Hemmings, recently arrived from India, where he has known battle, and held in contempt by many of his fellow officers because the Indian Army is a caste subordinate to the British Army.At the top, among the generals and Lords who are running this business, there is rivalry, bitterness, an adherence to ritual, and sloth in making decisions. The three cretins are Lords Lucan, Raglan, and Cardigan. (Two of them are sweaters, aren't they?) The Light Brigade, headed by Cardigan, Trevor Howard, is either given the wrong order or misinterprets the order as received. In any case, he leads the charge up the wrong valley. The causes of this disastrous error are never made explicit. And in fact there is so much confusion that I, at least, was often unaware of who was where and what they were doing.I don't know how closely the film follows the historical record. The story includes a correspondent but it might well have given a small role to George McLellan, an American observer, who later led Lincoln's Army of the Potomac to one defeat after another. Nor do we meet Florence Nightingale on her first trip to a battlefield.Somebody like Nightingale was needed too. Medical practices were appalling. Men died left and right of 19th-century infectious diseases like cholera. The germ theory of disease was not even a theory yet, so surgeons wouldn't wash their bloody hands between amputations.The impression we get is that this is pretty realistic. In most such films, for instance, the horses are taken for granted. Here, without any sentiment whatever, we realize the importance of their care and training.There is little in the way of preaching. Nolan has a couple of pithy apothegms but no speeches about the futility of war. If a war is to be fought, it should be fought by professionals to the death. Lord Raglan, John Gielgud, describes the still unstained battlefield as "pretty" for a visiting lady who happens to be the main squeeze of Lord Cardigan, Trevor Howard. There is a ludicrous scene in which, before having sex, they undo each others' corsets.Humor isn't entirely absent, as far as that goes. Cardigan and Lucan muttering curses at each other under their breath. And Raglan complaining that the statue of the Duke of Wellington that has been temporarily placed outside his office window is blocking the light at his desk. People speak to him of urgent matters but he stands at the window, preoccupied with the presence of that damned heroic statue of the Duke. Howard is a stereotypical blustering, red-faced British officer with mutton-chop whiskers. All the officers appear to shout at the top of their lungs, like DIs at Parris Island. A few ridiculous animated sequences, a la Monty Python, illustrate collective experiences and actually contribute to our understanding of what's up, rather than being a distraction.Violence in its political forms of warfare and terrorism seem so hard-wired into human nature that I fear the solution lies not so much in some vague willful desire for peace but in biology itself. The people who will finally wean us of the desire to kill each other will be not preachers but neurosurgeons.

TedMichaelMor This is a superb account of the tragic charge of the Light Brigand during the Battle of Balaclava. It is a fine x-ray of the abusive British military and class system and a thoughtful and colourful exposure of the propaganda of war.I recall as a teenager reading Cecil Woodham Smith's famous book "The Reason Why", which first acquainted me with the event. I have long considered the tragedy as what happens when military intelligence is flawed or lacking.The film has a sixties tone—long on detail, with side stories and colourful little touches like splendid Richard Williams's animations of British publications from the time of the event.I am not certain how well the film narrative corresponds to a recent PBS documentary on the topic. My memory is not that good. It seem that the role of Captain Nolan might have been other than depicted here. He did not have an affair with Captain Morris' wife. However, I think the film is not only accurate for the most part but depicts the moment in history vividly and with great feeling.This is a great movie, a masterwork. Watching it moved me.