Hadrina
The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful
Kaydan Christian
A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.
Logan
By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.
oscar-35
*Spoiler/plot- Masterpiece- Sharps Rifles, 1993. Come-up-from-the-ranks Captain Sharpe of The King's Rifle unit fights in the Napolenonic Wars on mainland Europe against all opponents and deserters.*Special Stars- Sean Bean, Assumpta Serna, Elizabeth Hurley, Hugh Fraser, Pete Postlethwaite, Michael Byrne, Jeremy Child. *Theme- Honor and ethics wins battles and makes comrades.*Trivia/location/goofs- British TV series, Masterpiece Theater. Enjoyable historic uniforms, songs and locations to be seen.*Emotion- It's very satisfying, rich and moralistic tale of Iberian Campaign of the Napoleonic wars. Full of action and intrigue with a few melodrama ethics added for viewer enjoyment. Think Horatio Hornblower on land in the British Army.*Based On- Best selling book.
satori9512011
A fairly entertaining series, but with a too little economic backing to carry it off properly, the events of 1808 was on such a scale that a realistic recreation is difficult. However when a force that consisted of 30 000 or 120 000 men is attempted recreated with 30 to 60 men some of the sense of it all loses its meaning. The only way to hide such inadequacies is to have a clever and inventive camera man sadly lacking here which gives the production a veneer of amateurishness it could well be without. Another problem is that the extras they have used are non-military ergo they don't know how to march, or fight, or shoot and all the battle scenes look thoroughly fake. That said the main characters in the series for most parts do a passable job; with a few exceptions who are about as involved as cheddar cheese. Sean Bean is an actor who I before this series, never have liked in any role he has played, but the role of Sharp suits him and he is believable in the role. As for the historical aspect to this series it is interesting to observe how liberal the English are with historical events, while simultaneously complaining over the Americans and Hollywood for falsifying history. I read the books the series is based on some years back and had an impression that they were more true to the actual events than this TV series, then again I might be suffering from a laps of amnesia. I cannot speak for the part of the series that unfolds itself in India but to anyone versed in European history it is a known fact that the French pulled out of Spain due to the troubles the Spanish guerrilla was causing them. The relentless fighting against an enemy they could not see was bleeding the French ranks and draining their resources, demoralizing their troops and when Napoleon in 1813 suffered great losses in Russia the French began pulling out their troops from Spain as they were needed for the defense of France against the advancing Russians. Since then the English have told us that they kicked the French out of Spain and in this series, even giving the impression that it was them, not the Russians; who marched into Paris having defeated Napoleon in 1814. Secondly, in the first part of this series the French intelligence service is depicted as completely inept compared to the English one. This is perhaps even more preposterous than taking credit for what the Russians and Spanish did, for French intelligence services was led by a man called Fouché and he had developed the most effective intelligence agency Europe had seen up till then, compared to this the English were amateurs (to use a French word, of which reconnoiter is another one). The third preposterous allegation from the series is that it was Wellington who single handed beat Napoleon at Waterloo. We have heard this lie so often now from the British that the man who really beat Naploeon at Wateroloo and ended his reign has almost been forgotten. But his name was Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, count of Wahlstat. Unlike Wellington, Blücher had met Napoleon in the field before, at Jena and was for a long time the only one who got away from it with some honour intact. The 50 000 strong Prussian troops (the English had 30 000)was what got Wellington's boots out of the fire rescuing him from a battle he was losing. it was them who captured Napoleon and was the first to take Paris. As a reward the English has pretended he was not there at best he is a foot note. In spite of this the Series is as I said at the start an enjoyable little fairy-tale just like Harry Potter and well worth watching, for most parts it is better than the mindless rubbish one usually is served on TV; but like Harry Potter, not to be taken too serious - if you are looking for historical accuracy from the English I would rather suggest Black Adder.
newkfl
I was very impressed with Sharpe's Rifles starring Brian Cox. I think that Brian Cox has slowly become one of my favorite actors over the many years that I had viewed his acting work. I have also seen Cox in the director's cut of Manhunter and he did some wonderful work in that film too. Sharpe's Rifles showed me that hard work and determination could payoff for those individuals not even given a chance to succeed. Sharpe's men and his allies were outnumbered many times in the film, but stood up to them and protected what they believed to be theirs. Sure many lives were lost and blood was shed, but these are some of the prices an individual must be willing to pay in order to get the reward at the end of the tunnel. Brian Cox showed me that a man could be sharp, cunning, smart and honest and still reign on top in the end. A great little movie.
Blueghost
When I first saw the "Sharpe's Rifles" series here in the United States on Public Broadcasting I was very much enamored with it. A few years later the series became available on VHS, but I didn't want to spend all that money on a format that I knew was going to be phased out in a few years.Ho boy, how I wish I had.I just recently purchased the Region 1 NTSC five-episode DVD set for North America, and I have to say that I've rarely come across a poorer video transfer than has been done by BFS Entertainment.BFS Entertainment somehow managed to wrangle an exclusive license for the United States and Canada for the video distribution rights to this series, and, as usual, we the customers are paying for a lack of quality control on behalf of the producer's and owners of the property.BFS Entertainment's other claim to fame was their DVD release of another British mini series drama entitled "Flambards." And, given the extremely poor video transfer I saw of that series my heart sank when I saw BFS's logo and public domain music scroll across my TV screen.In short the few five episodes that have been released for North America have a grainy image due to poor video compression, bleed color (if you can believe that from optical media), and have equally poor sound quality to match the video.If you must purchase this magnificent series on video then try to find an old VHS from PBS/Mobile Masterpiece Theatre, or invest in a region 2 DVD player and buy the series from an online store in England.Don't waste your money on the BFS release.*EDIT* I bought a set of Region 2 DVDs from the UK, and they are superior in every way to the US Region 1 release.
