The "Lighthorseman" works best when the troopers are in the saddle; when they dismount and start talking, the problems begin. No detail of equipment was overlooked in recreating the look of the Light Horse of the Great War, nor were any time-worn clichés from the previous fifty years of war movies.
Few cinematic cavalry charges are better than the one at the end of this movie, but if you were hoping for history brought to life with the same depth and sensitivity as Peter Weir's "Gallipoli", this isn't that movie.
The story focuses on a section of Light Horsemen: Dave, Scotty, Chiller and Tas played by Peter Phelps, Jon Blake, Tim McKenzie and John Walton. Tony Bonner as their commanding officer, Colonel Bourchier, gives one of the film's best performances as a no-nonsense officer who has earned the respect of his men.
When the script deals with the by-play between the troopers the movie has a believable tone, but when it tries to set the scene in historical terms, it gets trickier.
Everybody from stiff-backed German officers to stiff upper-lipped British ones, deliver chunks of laborious exposition, much of it speculation about whether the Light Horse will charge or just dismount and crawl through the sand under intense fire. A German officer, who makes the German officers in Errol Flynn's war movies appear as models of subtlety, comments on the Australians, "They are formidable soldiers but the British don't know how to use them". Forced dialogue such as this makes you appreciate how good Weir's "Gallipoli" really is.
Dave Mitchell is the central character who finds he is unable to shoot the enemy. After being wounded, he meets Anne, a nurse played by Sigrid Thornton, who helps him come to terms with his problem. Although this is apparently based on a true story, the cinematic déjà vu is overwhelming.
The shots of the Light Horse on the move are impressive and the final charge is exciting, but there could be a little too much use of the zoom lens in "The Lighthorsemen".
Our visual knowledge of historic events is shaped by images such as the black and white photography from the last half of the 19th Century followed by film of varying quality through the first half of the 20th Century. Although the zoom lens had been around for about fifty years, it didn't come into it's own until the early 1960's when the problem of focus was solved. You don't see much use of the zoom in movies and documentaries up until then.
Although filmmakers could claim they are bringing history to life in a modern and immediate way, I feel that a period film that uses the zoom extensively tends to distance itself from the look and feel of the times in which it is set. There is no noticeable use of the zoom in John Ford's cavalry trilogy; films that effortlessly capture the period in which they are set.
In World War 1, The Australian Light Horse and the New Zealand Mounted Rifles comprised the British Army's main mobile strike arm in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign. Before tanks, these mounted troops were the British army's equivalent of the next war's Panzers, and Beersheba was their most spectacular Blitzkrieg.
Despite the brashness, "The Lighthorsemen" goes some way towards giving these men, arguably Australia's greatest generation, some belated homage.
Few cinematic cavalry charges are better than the one at the end of this movie, but if you were hoping for history brought to life with the same depth and sensitivity as Peter Weir's "Gallipoli", this isn't that movie.
The story focuses on a section of Light Horsemen: Dave, Scotty, Chiller and Tas played by Peter Phelps, Jon Blake, Tim McKenzie and John Walton. Tony Bonner as their commanding officer, Colonel Bourchier, gives one of the film's best performances as a no-nonsense officer who has earned the respect of his men.
When the script deals with the by-play between the troopers the movie has a believable tone, but when it tries to set the scene in historical terms, it gets trickier.
Everybody from stiff-backed German officers to stiff upper-lipped British ones, deliver chunks of laborious exposition, much of it speculation about whether the Light Horse will charge or just dismount and crawl through the sand under intense fire. A German officer, who makes the German officers in Errol Flynn's war movies appear as models of subtlety, comments on the Australians, "They are formidable soldiers but the British don't know how to use them". Forced dialogue such as this makes you appreciate how good Weir's "Gallipoli" really is.
Dave Mitchell is the central character who finds he is unable to shoot the enemy. After being wounded, he meets Anne, a nurse played by Sigrid Thornton, who helps him come to terms with his problem. Although this is apparently based on a true story, the cinematic déjà vu is overwhelming.
The shots of the Light Horse on the move are impressive and the final charge is exciting, but there could be a little too much use of the zoom lens in "The Lighthorsemen".
Our visual knowledge of historic events is shaped by images such as the black and white photography from the last half of the 19th Century followed by film of varying quality through the first half of the 20th Century. Although the zoom lens had been around for about fifty years, it didn't come into it's own until the early 1960's when the problem of focus was solved. You don't see much use of the zoom in movies and documentaries up until then.
Although filmmakers could claim they are bringing history to life in a modern and immediate way, I feel that a period film that uses the zoom extensively tends to distance itself from the look and feel of the times in which it is set. There is no noticeable use of the zoom in John Ford's cavalry trilogy; films that effortlessly capture the period in which they are set.
In World War 1, The Australian Light Horse and the New Zealand Mounted Rifles comprised the British Army's main mobile strike arm in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign. Before tanks, these mounted troops were the British army's equivalent of the next war's Panzers, and Beersheba was their most spectacular Blitzkrieg.
Despite the brashness, "The Lighthorsemen" goes some way towards giving these men, arguably Australia's greatest generation, some belated homage.