Gallipoli (1981)

... that is if never means a couple weeks from now.
... that is if 'never' means less than a couple weeks from now.

Genre: Period Adventure War Drama (Australia)

Starring: Mark Lee ("Tales of the South Seas" • "BeastMaster"), Mel Gibson (Braveheart • Lethal Weapon)

Directed By: Peter Weir (Picnic at Hanging Rock • Dead Poets Society)

Overview: During World War I, two Australian sprinting hopefuls join the army to fight the Turks in Gallipoli.

The campaign in Gallipoli, Turkey began in April 1915 and lasted 10 months. The British, including the Australians, and the French planned to capture Istanbul and knock Turkey out of the war. History tells us that the campaign failed. Peter Weir's Gallipoli, being the story of two Australian athletes who 'join up', is a tale of two lives at their peak of their potential, friendship during strife, and the rest of that bla bla bla.

Yes, kiddies, you can find Mel Gibson before the big time, before the Apolcalypto, before the Tom Cruise-grade madness, as an actor who doesn't have top billing, Mel Gibson before he completed 10 films and not one of them was an American production, you know, the early years! And yes, you'll find in our headliner, Mark Lee, and the rest of the cast to all be a bunch of right good actors. You'll find beautiful scenes shot in Australian deserts, wonderful Egyptian city streets and pyramids... but you'll also find a script you've heard a dozen times before. You'll see two men bonding a friendship, you'll find them going to war and War is Hell, and a futile waste of life and you'll tick off each completed formula as every predictable scene is delivered with just enough twist to keep it Australian. in short, Gallipoli is the kind of movie for people who love World War I movies that aren't actually about world War I. It's for fans of friendship films that don't involve coming of age while having the added bonus of being a period piece, being Foreign and being a quality production overall, and having a dramatic ending. And for this critic everything about it is fine... not recommended, but fine.

There's camadardie, I'll give it that!

Performance: 8 Cinematography: 8 Script: 6 Plot: 7 Mood: 6

Overall Rating: 70% (Not Great For Me)

Aftertaste:

Whenever a running scene began, the entire undercurrent of the film, the music that was consistently used was too close to the sound and style of Chariots of Fire to be a coincidence, so I looked it up. For as much as I know that Gallipoli was an Australian film releases less than two months before the British Chariots of Fire, it looks like this may merely be synchronicity... but I'm not convinced...

Submitted by alfindeol on July 20, 2010 - 10:11pm.

I forgot to mention the music in my review. God the synth music was bad. I don't know who decided on that particular music, but it definitely didn't scream dramatic.

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Gallipoli (1981)

Overall Rating: 70% (Not Great For Me)

Aftertaste:

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