Breaker Morant (1980)

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General		Extras
Category	War	Main Menu Audio & Animation Theatrical Trailer-Playing Beatie Bow
Rating
Year Of Production	1980
Running Time	102:35 (Case: 104)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Bruce Beresford
Studio Distributor	South Aust Film Corp Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Edward Woodward Jack Thompson John Waters Bryan Brown Charles Tingwell Terence Donovan Chris Haywood Vincent Ball Lewis Fitzgerald Rod Mullinar
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$34.95	Music	None Given

    Harry 'Breaker' Morant really existed - he was, from what little I've read, somewhat like the character depicted here. A poet, a horse-breaker (hence his nick-name), a soldier, a man in the wrong place at the wrong time... More than anything, a man caught up in the machinations of British politics. He did fight in the Boer War (a nasty little affair, intended to give the British control over resources like diamond mines in South Africa), and he was tried as depicted in this film.

    There are at least two Australian films that play up mistreatment of Australian soldiers by British officers - the other one is Gallipoli, a little story you may have heard of, about some Australian soldiers being sent to their deaths by British officers who don't give a damn. This is a smaller, more intimate, story, of three Australian lieutenants being tried by court-martial (I'm so tempted to call it a kangaroo court). The purpose of this trial is not to get to the truth, but rather to persuade Germany not to get involved in the Boer War. The British don't care about the Australians involved - after all, they are only 'colonials' - it is the politics that is important.

    This film begins with the conclusion of a board of inquiry, and the recommendation of that board that a court-martial be convened. This news is conveyed by Lt Colonel Denny (Charles Tingwell) to the prisoners: Lieutenants Morant (Edward Woodward), Hancock (Bryan Brown), and Witton (Lewis Fitzgerald). The movie proper is the court-martial. We see the events concerned in flashback during the evidence being given at the court-martial. The Australians are being defended by a Major Thomas (Jack Thompson), who arrives just before the proceedings begin.

    The British are taking few chances that a fair trial will ensue - most of the men who could give evidence for the defence have been transferred to India; the defence attorney has no court experience (he was a country solicitor in NSW); and the prosecutor (Rod Mullinar) has been given six weeks to prepare his case (and the witnesses, some of whom are shown to be lying via flashbacks).

    This film is ruthless in its portrayal of British hypocrisy, and makes it very easy to cheer for the Australians and condemn the British. I can't imagine that it was popular in Britain. It was quite popular in Australia (no surprise). And it did reasonably well in the US. Despite the clear prejudice, this is a powerful film. Jack Thompson gets a number of chances to let loose his dramatic flair, and Edward Woodward gets some truly memorable lines: I really like "Shoot straight, you b******s!", but perhaps the most memorable is his speech about "Rule 303" (if you are too young to remember, the 303 was the bolt action rifle issued to Australian soldiers at the time - it was .303 calibre, the calibre Americans call "thirty thirty" because they write it .3030).

    In short, this is a great film, and truly deserves to be in every Australian's collection of DVDs. But please, do not buy the Region 4 disc - it is dreadful. Get the Region 1 disc - it is far superior. How sadly ironic - a great Australian film, and I have to recommend the overseas version.

Video

    This movie is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, not 16x9 enhanced. This is a pan and scan transfer, and not the best one ever made, either. I suspect it is a VHS master.

    The image is mostly very soft, with one or two moments that could be described as almost acceptable - see 47:16, and 91:07, the latter in particular is nice, showing what the picture quality could have been. Shadow detail is reasonable, but reduced from what I would expect on a DVD. There is what may well be low-level noise (not so low in level, either) across a lot of the film. I'd suggest that the film is grainy, but having seen the picture quality on the R1 I can say with certainty that the problems here cannot be attributed to film grain. Light levels seem to fluctuate without reason.

    Colour is washed out. There are deliberate production design choices at work here, with a deliberately muted palette, consisting of khaki uniforms on the British, dark colours on the Boers, and dull colours on the buildings. However, even the sky is washed out in this transfer - you have to compare it to the R1 disc to see what it should look like, with a contrast between the dull colours on the men and the blue of the sky, green of the scenery - this transfer has removed this artistry from the film. Of course, the colour is much harder to judge when it is hidden under layers of artefacts...

    They clearly went to considerable trouble to find the film print used to make this transfer. They searched hard, and found the dirtiest, spottiest, print they could, and then gave it a fairly poor transfer. There is a continuous stream of minor film artefacts (spots, flecks, tiny hairs, dirt, and so on), and intermittent major film artefacts - things like the twisted hair at 28:29 that runs most of the height of the frame, the frame breaks at 54:46 and 54:49, the localised burn marks at 68:52 (three frames), and the dirt marks at 91:28, 91:32 and 95:53. These are far from being the only major film artefacts, but if I listed them all the review would be overwhelmed - suffice it to say that there far too many of them. And film artefacts are not all - there are several moments of noticeable telecine wobble, including one moment when the film seems to buckle. One of the few good things is that there's not a lot of aliasing, nor moire - probably because the picture is so soft. There's continuous mosquito noise. Basically, this is a shoddy transfer of a dirty print.

    There are no subtitles.

    The disc is single-sided (nice label), single-layer. No layer change.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There is a single soundtrack on this disc - an English Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack without surround encoding, mono in content.

    The dialogue is perfectly adequate and comprehensible. There are a couple of moments when audio sync seems on the verge of going out, but it never reaches a point where I can definitely call it out.

    There is no score as such - no music behind the action. There is brass band music outside the court - a sarcastic comment on British priorities - and a couple of songs - one of them featuring Edward Woodward (he has quite a good voice). Edward Woodward also sings Soldiers of the Queen - the theme song of this film - under the closing credits.

    The surrounds and subwoofer are not used by this soundtrack.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    There is only a single extra, and it's not for this film...

Menu

    The main menu is animated, with music (an instrumental version of Soldiers of the Queen).

Trailer (2:00)

    This is not a trailer for Breaker Morant (which is what I expected). It is a trailer for Playing Beatie Bow. This trailer is given no better treatment than the film.

    The Region 1 is a Fox Lorber release. I have a few of their discs, and they are not always top quality - they seem to specialise in films that are less than blockbusters, often from outside the US. This seems to be a typical Fox Lorber release - it is widescreen, but not 16x9 enhanced. It has only 9 chapter stops (the R4 disc has 20)

    The Region 4 disc is missing:

• widescreen transfer in correct aspect ratio
• production credits (2 pages)
• filmographies (4)
• Breaker Morant trailer

    The Region 1 disc is missing:

• lots of film artefacts
• irrelevant Playing Beatie Bow trailer
• time coding

    There's no question - the Region 1 disc is vastly superior, and this from a distributor not renowned for fabulous discs. How embarrassing! Even without 16x9 enhancement it comes out far better - I blew up the picture to fill the screen, and the quality is still superior. It is far sharper and much cleaner - there are still some artefacts, but far fewer. The sound is still Dolby Digital 2.0 mono, but recorded at 448kbps.

    I can only recommend buying the Region 1 disc.

    Breaker Morant is a classic Australian film, presented on a shocking DVD.

    The video quality is poor.

    The audio quality is adequate.

    The extra is not relevant.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall