Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Waste of time

SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

This is probably the second to worst of the series (the follow up Sharpes Justice nipping it at the post), and for a number of reasons. For starters the plot is nonsensical - the set-up of Sharpe is so laden with holes it's not even worth considering, especially when Maillot's body is going to turn up with freshly cut off, unbandaged fingers - as opposed to 3 weeks prior.Add to that the needless add-in of Janes money grabbing friend, and Jane's sudden shift from 'daughter of a saddler' saved from the clutches of some gormless upper class twit as chosen by her wicked uncle into high society mistress. Yes Sharpe breaks his promise, but only by a couple of hours....for that it costs him 10k, his wife and nearly his life. Jane goes from being a strong willed independent spirit to some kind of airhead, neurotic female straight out of a Jane Austen novel.Cornwell may have done wrote the book like that; I don't know, but for me it spoilt the series because I really couldn't stand Jane to start with. Then again it gave Sharpe the chance to bed another lady...Frederickson steals the show. The guy is a legend in his own lunch-hour, with false teeth and dashing hairdo, half a pair of eyes and saucy eye-patch he's the guy you are desperately wishing a bit of luck on - and you know he's too interesting to die.The Chosen Men have disappeared in this one. After gradually being whittled down over the last few films it was beginning to turn into something of a on-the-road comedy a la Hope and Crosby with Harper and Sharpe. It gets worse in the next one with no Frederickson.

By now, we know the drill, Sharpe gets into trouble, and he and Harper have to fight to get out of it. It could start to get formulaic, but somehow it never does. The writers did an admirable job of editing Sharpe's fortress out of this one, although Wigram's reasons for calling Sharpe out are somewhat spurious. Fredrickson stomps all over Harper as sidekick-the-audience-most-wants-for-themselves, and Lucille is just lovely - although I don't think I can forgive her for not being straight with Fredrickson - she's a lot nicer in the book. Maillot deserved a bit more character development than he actually got too, but overall, not a bad effort. I really don't know what to make of Jane - she seems to have some weird deranged schizophrenic thing going on where one minute she's evil and the next confused. As much as I love Richard, I have to say he was outshone by Fredrickson in this one.

As usual , Sharpe shows up a senior officer at the start of the film , and get into a duel .The slimy Ducos makes another appearance , schemeing as always , with a plan to get Sharpe into even more trouble . Sharpe is arrested , and ends up on the run until he can prove his innocence .Capt Fredrikson and Sgt Harper seem to be the only people who Sharpe can rely on , although Sharpe gets some unexpected allies !Alexis Denisoff ( Lord Rossendale ) makes his first appearance in the series , in a role far removed from Wesley in the Buffy TV series .

This outing for Richard Sharpe wants for little. Although there are no big battle scenes, it still looks good. Compared to the book, it follows pretty well (all the best Sharpe films do) and it is nice to see that Cornwell's story is not butchered, like in Gold. I haven't seen this movie for quite a while now but I enjoyed it when I did and if you are a Sharpe fan, which I darn well hope you are, then you should get to one of those really really good video stores and rent this title, along with the others. They are best watched in order... Rifles, Eagle, Company, Enemy, Honour, Gold, Battle, Sword, Regiment, Siege, Mission, Revenge, Justice, Waterloo.