Bullet Points: Sharpe’s Battle
It may have been a program developed for television; the seventh in a sixteen episode series that followed the rough and ready Major Richard Sharpe, but Sharpe’s Battle contains all the battle scenes and character building moments to give many a feature film a run for their money when it comes to early 19th century historical war movies.
Synopsis: Major Richard Sharpe (Sean Bean) is ordered to take the King of Spain’s Irish Royal Brigade under his command and train them during the Napoleonic War. Dissension, hatred for the British, and the close proximity of the enemy makes training of the men nearly impossible for Sharpe and his men.
- Credits: A search through some DVD bins produced this find for me. When it first started playing, I thought the film had started and was left puzzled when it turned out to be merely an advertisement for the full series. The main reason for my surprise was because the clip was amazing! It was pretty much a narrated montage of Major Sharpe kicking ass and plowing chicks. He was a regular 1800’s James Bond!
- Rifleman: Sharpe’s buddy Sgt. Harper has one of the coolest rifles that you’ll find on an 1813 battlefield. It’s a seven barreled nock gun and if Jesse Ventura was in this movie he would most certainly be the man to carry it!
- The French: Led by the wonderfully dressed General Loup, the Frenchmen, wearing wolf fur on their uniforms and riding their horses directly into squads of firing men, take Sharpe and his men to the limit.
- One does not simply train without a montage: It didn’t take long for Major Sharpe and his good sergeant Harper to put the newly formed Irishmen into a training regime. Of course the only way for a group to learn anything in a movie is to do it all in a montage. Everybody knows that!
- Blame the American Media: Much like every single politician today, the dissension of the Irish against the British Sharpe is mainly blamed on the American newspapers that somehow have made their way into the camp on the border of Spain and France.
- You trifling bitch: Not surprisingly, that damned Spanish broad who had been riding around flaunting her tight ass had been informing the French of everything going on in the British camp. It isn’t until someone finally reads the date on the newspaper and realizes that it’s from the day before that they pull their tails from between their legs and fight back against General Loup.
- Playing Possum: In what might have been my favorite scene in the movie, the entire force of Sharpe’s men lay dead in a narrow street only to rise abruptly and blast away at the surprised men shitting their pants in front of them.
- Sharpe’s battles: There isn’t much to want for in Sharpe’s Battle when it comes to the fighting action. There are numerous battle scenes and other than some Kurosawa shit where they would employ 2,000 extras, there isn’t much that could be done to make the action better in this one. As a non-Brit, this series is completely new to me so now I can start searching out the other episodes of the series and just assume that SEAN BEAN WILL DIE BY THE END. Because kicking ass and dying is what Sean Bean does best!
