Wonderfully offbeat film!

one of my absolute favorites!

Nice effects though.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

Private Peaceful is adapted from the book by Michael Morpurgo. It is a low budget film that features the final screen performance of Richard Griffiths who plays the pompous retired headmaster, the Colonel.Told in flashbacks, the story is about two Devonshire brothers Tommo (George McKay) and Charlie (Jack O'Connell) who before the war was close and getting into scrapes such as upsetting the Colonel and fall for the young girl in the village Molly (Alexandra Roach.) It is Charlie who marries her. Now Charlie is facing the firing squad for alleged cowardice.Until their father died in a tragic accident, the family had a relatively good life. Their father was a gamekeeper and forester employed by wealthy landowners.Both join up to fight the Great War even though Tommo was too young. Charlie tries to take care of Tommo and concerned about Molly who became pregnant before they set of for Flanders. Charlie also crosses swords with a sadistic sergeant who proves his undoing as Charlie disobeys orders and stays with injured Tommo in no man's land that leads him to be court martialled despite both men surviving gas attacks and deaths of their fellow soldiers while in the trenches.Both actors play their roles with sensitivity and despite the low key nature of the film there is an anti war message in its core. The film shows an England in the flux of change which the war accelerates albeit still too slowly for some.General Haig signs Charlie death warrant while paying billiards in his country estate. No thought to delve deeper as to what actually happened. It is left to history to judge Haig.

With my dad's Birthday fast approaching,I suddenly remembered seeing a poster outside a local outhouse cinema a few months ago,for what looked to be a very interesting British WW1 movie.Tracking down the name of the title after checking the listings of movies shown in the art-house cinema's archive,I went straight away to Amazon UK,where I was shocked to find the movie being sold at an insane high price.Deciding to try and find put if there were any other DVD editions of the movie by searching online,I was instead happily caught by surprise,when I discovered that a supermarket website was selling the movie at an extremely good price,which led me to excitingly getting ready to experience "peace time" for the first time.The plot:1914:As he awaits his sentence for disobeying a general's order's to re-enter no man's land,Private Peaceful begins to think back to his childhood.1908-Devon:England.Being the 5th generation to work for the family as a games keeper and groundsman ,James Peaceful push's his annoyance over the family's superiority complex aside, by thinking about the wage that he receives,which is allowing James to send his 2 sons Charlie and Tommy "Tommo" Peaceful to a good school,as his loving wife Hazel looks after the couple's autistic son,"Big Joe" Peaceful ,and also feeling happy that one of his son's will follow in his footsteps in the future.Despite both of them playing some rather naughty games around the school yard,Tommy and Charlie each hold the bond with their family dearly.Joining his dad in the family ground's to help cut down some trees,Charlie fails to notice a huge tree failing near him.Pushing Charlie out of the way,Jack is sadly unable to avoid the falling tree,which leads to him getting crushed to death.Haunted by the sight of his father taking his dying breath,Charlie vows to do everything possible to make amends in himself for "killing" his dad.View on the film:Appearing within the first 5 minutes of the film (and also on a mini making of) the late Richard Griffiths makes his final screen appearance a joy to witness,with Griffiths making sure that the wealthy man who is currently hiring the Peaceful family,strong,traditional views are clearly shown,whilst also making sure to smartly deliver the dialogue in a charming manner,which allows for the character to appear much more dimensional than other actors would have allowed him to be.Taking place from 1908-1914,the Peaceful's children and childhood friends are each played by two different actors who brilliantly make each character's transition from childhood to adulthood feel completely natural,with Jack O'Connell and Hero Fiennes-Tiffin both superbly showing the deep scar that is left on Charlie from his father's death,which gradually becomes more consuming as Charlie and "Tommo" both decide to make their mum proud by signing up with the other youngsters in the village for the front line.Whilst some of the anti-WW1 sentiment that the character's express dose feel a bit against the real life events which took place in the "last gasp" era of the Victorian period, (where dozens of villages tragically lost almost all of their young men and boys,who largely signed up to join the front lines of WW1 in large groups of either friends or family) the adaptation of Michael Morpurgo's novel by Simon Reade carefully balances the tragic events that take place for the Peaceful family with that of the events of WW1,with Reade showing James sense of optimism being replaced by Charlie and Tommo having a deep desire for the darkened corners of the old era to fade away,in the faint hope of a new horizon slowly appearing.Shooting the WW1 scenes in an unflinching,raw manner which shows the full horrific world that Charlie and Tommo find themselves in,director Pat O'Connor and cinematography Jerzy Zielinski contrast the gritty nature of the 1914 scenes by making the 1908 scenes ones that are filled with a brightly lit sense of joy and peaceful optimism,which as the years get closer to 1914,tragically starts to fade away.

The Movie is a brilliant capturing of the true problems and hardship in the times of World War 1, it captures the brilliant realism of the war and followed the life of a young man and his brother who befriend this girl who they both are great friends with, Tommo loves this girl very much, only for his brother Charlie to have captured her heart more.This is a sad story and truly shows the great hardship that families had to with-stand during world war 1, Over all this is a great Movie and it should be certain you watch this.This is very well portrayed from the novel- version and follows a struggling family from England during World War 1 in a small town in Iddlesbreigh who struggle with a elderly brother who has special-needs and has a fatal accident, when there father is killed, when a tree crushes him.It's very sad a does show you the true realism of World War 1

A terrible portrayal of a really good book. The films acting and general scene work was awful,any viewer who knows a tiny little bit about world war one Will watch this and know that they didn't put any care into the costumes and special effects. Overall this film is dog poo when put next to morpurgo's war horse film. Greatly Disappointed! This film really annoyed me as I was waiting for a really well made film (like the war horse) but they showed me a cast who's accents are terrible and General acting skills of a four-year old! At one point in the film sergeant Hanley makes Tommo run around and Charlie squares up to him,this annoys me as it would never of happened.Charlie got given field punishment number one and was tied to a gun wheel in clean uniform, this is wrong as the gun carriage would have been pulled around. This film was tripe!