I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

The first must-see film of the year.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Blistering performances.

Having savoured Evelyn Waugh's magnificent trilogy, I approached this filmic adaptation fearlessly. The expectation of seeing Daniel Craig, a favourite actor of mine, added to the enticement. Finally, being a WW2 films buff, I believed I was in for a treat.What a letdown...It's not that this mini-series is badly made, that Craig does not act well or that the dialogue is stilted. It is just soooooooo sloooooooooooow (except for some (too few) battle scenes) that it borders on boring. The one notable exception was the depiction of the battle for Crete, which looks as if was filmed on location. It had the flavour of the real thing, conveyed through the bright photography. Also, Robert Daws as brigade major Hound was fantastic. To me (no prude) the love angle was over-emphasized, with Megan Dodds annoyingly bad. Altogether, it took up too much screen time at the expense of other, more important aspects like the War, character development or Guy's Catholic dilemmas.Also, watching Richard Coyle acting in the same mode as he did in Coupling made me realize what a limited actor he is although again, I stress that in Coupling he was the heart of the show.Some reviewers have already noted that this film does not compare well with the books it is based on. I will add that while most films indeed don't, this one was an extremely painful example of how not to make a TV series based on a book, especially a masterpiece.

Recap: Guy Crouchback joins the war effort during World War 2, an idealistic quest to join the forces of good in the fight against evil. But his efforts is not rewarded, he never has any chance to join any real fighting, circumstances always prevent it. Instead he finds himself in the middle of an army full of cowards, incompetents and a few outright evil men. They of course reap the fortunes of war, promotions and fame, but never Crouchback. His war is just an endless list of transfers and an hopeless but noble quest for righteousness.Comments: Really a miniseries, based on a novel, or apparently a series of novels, that has been put on a DVD together to find a very long movie. Never read the novels, so I can't comment on how the movie compares to the books. But I can comment on the movie, and I can't really figure it out. Does it want to be a comedy, or a dramatic comment on wars as such. I think it really tries to be both, but because of it accomplishes neither.Too many characters are too incompetent, too cowardly or simply too mad to really take seriously. And if a score of characters can't be taken seriously, how could any message or implication in the story really be taken seriously. At the same time Crouchback seem to get in to quite a few hotspots in the war, but nothing really ever happens to or around him. So it is certainly not anything like an action. There is an implication about the madness of war, but what doesn't get lost in the lack of seriousness really get lost in the inaction of the movie. The message may be noble and important, but more than three hours are too much time to make just one statement, and when nothing other happens it gets dull.A few known actors and faces, but Daniel Craig is certainly the most known of them, mostly for his work after this movie. Can't really say he shines in this one, but he doesn't disappoint either.The movie isn't that bad really, but far too long. Therefore nothing I can recommend.5/10

This is a splendid effort by all concerned, especially given the time constraint of about 200 minutes. As well as men and women are still marching off to war to save Western civilization, the movie has a contemporary message. The brevity of the movie, given that it tells a story, originally told in three novels goes against it. So much plot and many characters have been left out seriously compromising Waugh's comic vision. Waugh's original novels contain very amusing dialogue and much of the novels are just dialogue, the writer creating character out of what people say. Although the script used snippets of Waugh's dialogue,there is lots and lots unused. However, the script writers and all the people involved in the production did a masterful job of salvaging something of Waugh's original story. The other major flaw is in the casting of Daniel Craig as Guy Crouchback. Craig does not have the aristocratic presence to play Guy. His features, stature,and movement suggest a working class hero; he is great for contemporary characters where class is not an issue. But Waugh's works are all about class and Daniel Craigdoes not look the part of an aristocrat. He would be fine as a Lawrencian hero, Birket in Women in Love, for example. The rest of the casting is more or less spot on with some splendid choices of actors for Guy's father, Virginia, Ivor Claire, Ritchie-Hook,and Trimmer and everybody else. The book is both so much more outrageously funny and profound about life than the movie. Read the book but enjoy the movie,too; the chaps who made the film have obviously put on a good show in difficult circumstances. I am now going to reread the book for the umpteenth time. The movie inspires that.

Like almost all of Waugh's novels, this is a lightly fictionalised version of incidents in his own life. Apart from the early one's, they were intended to advocate the austere and serious form of Catholicism that Waugh had converted to. But what makes him such a compelling storyteller is that he mixed comedy (light as well as grotesque) with the serious points, so that one never knows quite how a story will turn out. Waugh's life alternated between melancholy and farce - and that is how his fiction comes across as well. Maybe that's why when I read his novels and see the adaptations, I find myself nodding in agreement. Yes, that is what life is like ! I thought this version of Sword of Honour very good, but oddly structured. It started as three novels, so I would have thought it would make most sense as three segments, broadcast weekly. Instead we have two long "movies", which to the casual viewers must seem a bit jumbled.There are some superb acting performances here, though I found Daniel Craig as the hero a bit blank. Perhaps that is because, like Charles Ryder in Brideshead, the story is not really about him but about the people he meets and remembers in extraordinary circumstances. Previous reviewers have said that his wife Virginia comes across as very silly and unlikeable, but I disagree. I thought the actress (Megan Dodds - the end credits were so small that I couldn't read her name so I had to look on this site !) gave a very subtle and sophisticated performance. Really she is a woman who has never needed to think seriously about anything before, but the war experience forces her to. She becomes a Catholic - I think for Waugh this is one of the most important parts of the story.This is a worthy successor to the celebrated TV version of Brideshead Revisited, though I wanted it to go on longer ! Unlike Brideshead (which was stretched out to an absurd 13 hours), this trilogy of stories could have gone on much longer, and I still would have been absorbed.