BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Glimmerubro It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

Kamila Bell This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Jmhl3 This is the story of the Sandringham Company of the Royal Norfolk Regiment. The Sandringhams were made up out of servants or tenants of the Royal Family's estate at Sandringham. It follows there loves, hopes, fears throughout early 1915, as some lads want to see the world, another wants to marry before leaving, the officers are the same. The Medical Officer's wife has left him but is quite happy to go around with other women, other officers are uneasy about leaving home or their inexperience gets to them. The main character is Captain Frank Beck a respected figure at Sandringham and friend of the Royal Family, together with most of the others in the film he was a person in real life. The film passed to the Sandrighams deployment to the Dardenelles. It shows the chaos at Gallipoli with regards to logistics and discipline. Now we come to the attack the Sandringhams make. The film erroneously portrays the Sandringhams as going over the top without a preparatory barrage and from behind a sandbag barricade. In actual fact they went over with their brigade, with a short barrage and from trenches, the Sandrighams objective was to capture a farm. They were not led by Captain Beck, they were led by Lt Col Proctor with Beck as second in command, their battalion commander. The film gets it correct in showing the Sandringhams getting minced up by shell and sniper fire and there being few left once they reach the farm. They pushed the Turks out of the farm but the Turks regrouped and surrounded the farm. Proctor decided to surrender. The 40 or so survivors out of a company of 150 were marched out of the farm by the Turks and forced to kneel where they were then shot in the back of the head. The film shows Beck getting executed but it was later reported that he was fatally wounded just as the men got out of the trenches. After the war their remains were discovered and given a proper burial albeit there was nothing to identify a person with though except for the Royal Norfolk shoulder flashes. This film is very good and I believe the historical adviser wrote a fine book about the Sandringhams which should be interesting to many. If you want to see the forgotten story of a very sad but heroic tale, then this is the film for you.

Glenn Wade Few screen depictions ever hammer home the blunt and pointless nature of the Great War, especially the futile Gallipoli Campaign. This much under-rated BBC film achieves just that, an historical tableau never matched since on the small screen.The cast contains the cream of British acting talent, including David Jason, Maggie Smith, David Troughton and Patrick Malahide. The story, in a nutshell, is that of the Sandringham Company, a territorial unit formed by Frank Beck, agent on the Sandringham Royal Estate for King George V and his mother Queen Alexandria. The Company is dispatched to Turkey and go down in legend as advancing into action whilst being enveloped in a cloud, rumoured to be the hand of God. Their fate is determined after their bodies are discovered several years later with bullet wounds to the skulls. They had, for the most part, been executed by the Turks after surrendering.The graphic nature of the conflict is commendably realised and the veneer of heroism and medals stripped when we see the horrors and cruelty of war in it's starkest form. The death of Captain Claude Howlett, the tortured Boer War veteran, is one of the most moving ever witnessed on film. Patrick Malahide once again displays his unique gift like few others are able to.This is certainly not for those who are used to the rather bloodless 'Gunga Din' depiction of warfare that has been made but if you desire a few hours of historical enlightenment and superb performances by some of the finest actors in the world, then this made for television film is the piece de resistance.

xyl_54 while I agree with other posters about the quality of this film (the characters, acting and storyline were impressive) I can't say the same for the "mystery" aspect of the incident in Gallipolli it is based on. It is a myth that no official explanation exists; the incident is recorded in detail in the regimental history of the Norfolk regiment, to which the Sandringham company belonged. It is also a myth that no trace of the men was ever found; whilst their fate was unknown during the war (hence the mystery) their graves were recorded in 1920. The sad truth seems to be that most of the men perished in the battle, and those that did not died as prisoners of war

mmiller1 This is a richly textured story, filmed with the attention to detail that caused so many of us to plan our Sundays around "Masterpiece Theatre" starting with "Upstairs, Downstairs" and "Poldark", (Not to mention "I, Claudius", "The Duchess of Duke Street",...)In a film where the casting is uniformly superb, it is impossible to do everyone justice. As another commenter mentioned, David Jason and the always magnificent Maggie Smith remind us of a time when noble master and faithful servant were not cliches, but real people with pride, honor, and yes nobility on *both* sides. Additional shining performances from Ian McDiarmid as the vicar who stays home and Patrick Mallahide as the doctor who goes to war.I thought that "Johnny Got His Gun" (A+ book, B- movie) had given us the last word on WWI (or the 14-18 war as some call it.) I was wrong, and this film proves it.