2336 George Gently, Montalbano, Wallander and Blackout TV catch up July and August 2012

During July and August 2012 there has been some great dramatic series fiction on Television with Blackout a three part BBC production together with three more episodes of Wallander with Kenneth Branagh. I have particularly enjoyed The Newsroom the new Arron Sorkin creation which covers contemporary events with all the impression of authenticity that covered West Wing and with echoes of Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister which continues to be rerun on channels. The second series of the Bogies returns with more attention to the machinations of the Pope attempting to sustain his position and further the interests of his family than the explicit sexuality which in my judgement failed to add to the excellent performance of Jeremy Irons, while I am still trying to catch up with the latter episodes of the final season of the Sopranos, discovering in the process a rerun of Inspector Montalbano and being able to experience the first of 12 episodes which I missed. The first episode of a new series of George Gently set in Northumbria commenced on Sunday while to day there is a new series of New Tricks. I also accidentally came across a brilliant live short play performance of the meeting of spy Guy Burgess when the worked for the BBC as Parliamentary editor and Winston Churchill when he remained an isolated figure during the period when Chamberlain attempted to appease Hitler and his embryonic Nazi Empire.

In this first piece I try and remember Blackout which starred the former Dr Who Christopher Eccleston and one of my favourite female actresses, the always adorable, she will hate me for her describing her in this way, Dervia Kirwan.

The subject is a corrupt London politician who commits manslaughter on his way to become a popular Mayor of London supported by a large international corporation bidding to control the city though taking over the public sector services.

Eccleston plays Daniel Demoys the chairman of a contract allocating committee of what I presume is an individual local authority rather than the Greater London Council. It is never made clear which came first, his alcoholism or his corruption, paid by the man he goes on to kill for providing contract information and ensuring the man gains lucrative contracts for pubic sector services. Married to Dervia and with three children he consoles himself with the separated wife of a Metropolitan police Detective using a seedy Soho drinking club cum brothel.

Following a night of debauchery he encounters and kills the corrupt service provider and this triggers a great sense of guilt which leads him to intervening in an attempted assassination in which he is shot and become an overnight popular hero. Because of blackouts we the audience and Demoys himself is not sure his responsibility which he attempts to establish by retracting his movements on the fatal night.

Through a close political adviser Jerry Durrans played by Ewan Bremner had become an expert in managing elections and pushes Daniel into using his popularity to sweep into the office of Mayor, unaware that this former idealist has become one of several placed individuals by a sinister fascist corporation set on controlling greater London by winning contracts for all the essential and major public services. He initially successfully blackmails Demoys into cooperating and abandons his plans to create a utopian political situation in which the people own the services in such a way that they cannot be privatised. The position of the Mayor is undermined by the daughter of the man he killed seeking to know what her father was doing and why he was killed and by the Police Detective husband of his mistress who has suspicions about their infidelity and the involvement of Demoys in the death, helped on by a corrupt senior police officer also in the pay of the corporation.

Eventually Eccleston cleans himself up especially when the lives of his wife and children are threatened and realises that he will only be free of his guilt by confessing to his responsibility for the death and corrupt involvements leading to a long period of imprisonment. Through this atonement he rescues his marriage and relationship with his children as well as taking steps to stop the privatisation and set a new regime of good government for the capital. There is also the prospect of a new relationship between the Police detective and his former wife.

Conspiracies, politics, the police, the media and sex and corruptions has always interested me for reasons which should be implicit in my writings over the past five years and the level of acting in this work and broad subject matter outweighed the many questionable moments. However the series became very topical with the failure of the private corporation to provide the level of contracted security at the Olympic Games leading to the deployment of soldiers and arousing pubic concern and insecurity before the games commenced. This led one Tory Minister to admit he had reviewed his previous prejudices about the ability of the private sector to always perform better than the public. The success of the Olympic Games and the role played by London Mayor Boris Johnson has also highlighted the importance the London Mayor in British politics and in this in instance the future of the Tory Party in the UK and that of David Cameron in particular albeit with Scum Murdoch pulling the strings.

Kenneth Branagh

has achieved something which I thought impossible. He has matched the brilliant performances of the Swedish production of the Wallander Police Detective Books written by Henning Mankel with a three of four bi annual series. The fourth will be the last comprising the White Lioness and the two part adaptation of the final book Wallander book, a Troubled Man.

The first of the third series, “An event in autumn” Wallander is setting up home with his new girl friend, after the death of his father. He has become estranged from his daughter following her marriage to which he was not invited. This marks a change from the original TV series in which the daughter comes to work as a police woman at his station.

The story begins with the audience understanding that an inebriated lorry driver on the ferry between Sweden and Poland spots what he believes is a person falling from the side of the ship in the water past the window at which he is sitting in a bar lounge. The vessel is halted and a passenger and crew count taken and no one are found to be missing.

There are then two events which become connected to this incident. First the part remains, including a hand, of a female are found washed ashore suggesting a body caught up in a ship’s propeller. Meanwhile Kurt’s (Wallander’s) dog discovers a body buried under brambles in the garden of his idyllic new home and situation. This depresses him more than his partner. The length of time the body has laid leads to an investigation of previous owners. It also leads to contact with the neighbouring farmer and when his partner is attacked while investigation movement outside, Kurt chases the individual to the premises of the father. How are these events connected?

The mystery is solved when Kurt speaks to a young woman waiting at the quayside and finds that her friend has not appeared following a ferry trip to Poland which had been taken to seek financial assistance for the child the friend was carrying. It subsequently emerges that the father of the child is the bar man from the ferry who is also the son of the neighbouring farmer. He altered the ship’s passenger list via a computer terminal in the bar. It also emerges that the son had previously killed the girl whose body is found during close to the bramble bush. Kurt had discovered that in the advertising brochure for the property there were no bramble bushes but on visiting the farm he noted some bramble bushes and spaces revealing that some of the bushes had been transplanted.

It emerges that the son had befriended a girl staying at Wallander’s new home in the past. He had killed the girl and the knowledge of what happened had led his mother to commit suicide. The father had reburied the body on learning that the new owner was the famous police inspector. Once the truth emerges the father also commits suicide. However before this Montalbano turns his attention of a scrap yard owner who lived at the home for a time and to the mystery surrounding there whereabouts of his daughter who is found to be living in the USA and who contacts Wallander to prove she is alive. This part of the investigation reveals that the man sexual abused his daughter forcing her to also act as a prostitute along with the girl discovered buried and the two Polish girls’ one of whom was murdered. The other girl is also ordered by the killer of the other two.

This depressing episode gets worse when Kurt pressurises his female assistant to break into the Scrap yard against her better judgement. She is forced to shoot the two guard dogs that attack them and the owner strikes the assistant with a spade placing her in a coma from which she does not immediately recover. His partner leaves him not so much because of the history of the property but Kurt finds it increasingly difficult to communicate and share his feelings, in part requirements of his work but also tied in with the relationship with his father and daughter, the separation from his wife and feeling correctly responsible for what happened to his female assistant.

In the Dogs of War Branagh moved towards finding salvation for his trouble soul. This time two murdered men with their faces disfigured by acid are washed ashore in a dingy. In the introduction we had seen a fishing boat approach the dingy and then cast it adrift on the sight of the bodies. The investigation leads to the arrival of a Detective from Riga in Latvia who appears to be keeping info from Wallander. He stays at the home of Kurt for a hard drinking session at which they share something of how the job they do affects their relationships and their ability to communicate. Wallander presents the detective with a book about Sweden and the man leaves before Kurt awakes the next day.

Following the stealing of the dingy that had contained the bodies the man had revealed he had been investigating a drug ring but also suggesting he was under threat and the involvement of his superiors, indicating high level corruption.

When he learns that the detective has been murdered he travels to Riga and is met by two senior offices from the local station who take him to the funeral and introduce Kurt to the widow. They appear to suspect the widow of being involved with the death of her husband because of a relationship with a journalist investigating the drug gang and the issue of corruption. The journalist is framed for the murder and is then found hanged in his cell. Kurt who had developed a relationship with the widow returns home having been told the case is now closed.

At home he discovers the camera of the detective and this contains a photo copy of the file the detective kept on his investigation. Returning to Riga he and the widow join forces and they are soon under attack from the gang and their police contact. He is forced to hand over the evidence to obtain the release of the captured widow. With her help in then breaks into the police station and locates where the original file was kept hidden.

The issue is which of the two senior police officers is the guilty man? Only at the last minute does Kurt realises he has suspected the wrong man but fortunately the other is on hand and the guilty are apprehended. Kurt returns home, the relationship with the widow having developed but neither prepared to invest in something more substantial. The relationship has possessed healing aspects for both of them.

It is with the third episode Before the Frost that the extent to which the authors have created links between three selected books have is fully appreciated.

A woman disappears and is found to have been murdered. She had come across a man setting swans on fire, one of who aflame managed to fly off attracting the attention of someone who reported the incident. I remembered this incident from the original Swedish production but after this the story take a very different slant.

Kurt is visited at his isolated home in the countryside on the coast by a disturbed young woman who he knows as a friend of his daughter. She appears to want to tell him something but runs off. This leads Kurt to making contact with his daughter again. They find the friend is not at her flat and contact with her mother played by the excellent Lindsay Duncan reveals that these two have also become estranged and that girl has been away at university, but a visit there finds that she has dropped out and appears to have joined a religious cult. There are other odd deaths with the same component of someone dying as form of atonement. It emerges the missing girl’s father presumed dead returns and it here that is causing the death of individuals seeking atonement for past sins. Wallander becomes involved in a situation where the man has organised for his wife and daughter to commit suicide to atone for the fact that the with the help his wife his daughter had an abortion after being raped.

It is the girl who breaks out of the situation saving herself and her mother. The experience results in Wallander and his daughter confronting what happened between them and the daughter makes up for her father not being at the wedding letting him accompany her to the pregnancy ultra sound where he sees the picture of her child. The female assistant is also on the road to recovery and she tells Wallander he does not need to assuage his guilt by constant visiting. She has her husband and her daughter. The series therefore ends on a positive and optimistic note after the depressing gloom engendered by the first.

I must use some credit with Amazon to buy the Wallander books, or at least some of them. First however I will read the Montalbano Books after the discovery that the BBC Four has commenced a second series after the first 9 episodes were shown between February and April this year and achieved ratings averaging 700000. It would be surprising if as with Wallander the BBC did not commission English. Language versions of this excellent series in time. Some twenty or more novels and scripts have been created since 1984, some of which are yet to be translated into the English Language. The BBC series is following the Italian showings which commenced in 1994 with two episodes followed by a similar number in 2000 and 2001. Then in 2002 four episodes were made into TV episodes with two others in 2005, 2006, and the four more in 2008. There was then a gap of three years until 2008 when three more episodes were aired bringing the total to 21. Six of these were scripts without books.

Inspector Montalbano

is much more outgoing but as clever Detective as Wallander. The episode experienced on Saturday evening has a different title from the book, the seventh written and called Round the Mark and which I have ordered and will be delivered on Wednesday along with the other first 11 written between 1994 2008. The BBC title is Turning Point. This is because the episode reflect a potential major change in the life of the Detective.

In this episode Montalbano has decided to resign because of a scandal affecting a mainland force in which it is said evidence was fabricated and suspects beaten up. He is appalled by the behaviour colleagues on the mainland tarnishes all their reputations, especially after similar problem involving the police forced centred on Napoli.

As with the first BBC series the series depends on the interaction between Montalbano and his three colleagues, his deputy Mimi Augello, the former playboy now married to Beba (Beatrice di Leo) who is expecting their first child and the next in command Guisppe Fazio who they refer to as Fazio and the desk officer and general factotum Agatino Caterella who is khack handed and a figure of fun but is also a very serious and dedicated officer with hidden talents which are allowed to emerge from time to time. It is Mimi who guesses what Montalbano has decided to resign and berates him accusing him of betraying his colleagues who are also honest and dedicated.

Montalbano goes off for a swim in a bay near to his house to reflect on what has happened and bumps into floating body which he brings ashore and then lies close to it exhausted. An elderly couple on holiday with a borrowed gun attempt to arrest Montalbano thinking he is a murderer and when having called the station Mini and Fazio arrive the man hits Montalbano on the head with the pistol knocking him down before he can be restrained. The couple then appear on local TV making disparaging remarks about a lack of law and order in Sicily because of its reputation as the home of the Mafia. Montalbano incensed ensures that action is taken on discovering that weapon is not licensed.

Usually he presses the Coroner for the results of the autopsy but this time it is the Coroner who approaches the Inspector charging him with a lack of concern assuming the body is but one of the hundreds of immigrants washed up dead. The body was dead before being into the water for a week or more and because of the current the face cannot be identified but there are indications the limbs had been tied and then cast into the sea at point to make it look as if it was under failed migrant.

The detective is then called to the harbour after a boat with illegal immigrants has been apprehended and Salvo sees a young boy of Middle Eastern appearance perhaps eight or night running off. He approaches the boy and although they speak different languages he is able to establish confidence and reunites the boy with a woman with several other children. The woman is delighted to see the child and then appears to claim her leg is broken as she falls. Later the Inspector finds there is no record of her at the hospital and the ambulance driver confirms that on arrival she said she was OK and had walked with difficulty into the hospital casualty department. This Salvo is told was likely to have been a ploy as there are no security cameras within the hospital which meant the woman would then leave with the children whereas she would have been taken from the harbour and formally interviewed by the police/immigration authorities.

He discussed this situation by phone with his mainland woman friend Livia Burlando played by Kathrina Bohm and also as a voice by Claudia Catani, presumably when the actress left the series or was unable to be filmed. It is assumed that the gaps in this 12 year lasting series is because one or more of the actors was otherwise committed.

In this instance the concerns, shared by the woman friend, are soon realised when an immigrant boy is found dead the subject of a hit and run. He finds this is the same boy who he persuaded to return to the woman he believed was the boy’s mother, A local farmer who witnessed part of what happened at a distance and partially unsighted because of a wall suggests that the boy was deliberately run down.

Montalbano arranges for a colleague to make a mock up of the face from the body in the water, reminding of similar action in the film Gorky Park. Catarella brings the computer generated face suggesting it is that of a wanted criminal. Mimi disagrees about the similarly of likeness. His position appears confirmed when the local Police commander says that the man was buried by his widow a year before.

What the Inspector is able to uncover is a horrific example of child abduction and bringing to Italy for use as spare body parts, to be sold to be paedophiles or for slave labour. The Inspector is helped by journalist introduced to him by the Coroner who is investigating the trade and by Ingrid a female friend who arrives at the station when invited to have dinner only to find the policeman has forgotten but then sees the photo of the dead man who she identified as the man previously believed dead and who taken her for sex to rooms he was using at an otherwise deserted former Tuna Factory close to the beach where the body was found.

It is here that the Inspector and the force lay in wait when getting info of the arrival of next fishing boat filled with young male migrants. The Inspector intervenes when he sees one of the boys beaten for protesting at being given an injection/taking of a blood sample. The children are held at the centre for medical examination and grading for onward selling on the mainland. Montalbano is shot while rescuing the boy killing the gang leader in the process. The episode ends with Montalbano convalescing in a mountain top country treat used by his father and where apart from Mimi who brings him there the only other person involved is a neighbour and former friend of his father who has arranged for the place to be ready for him with bedding and food. He is still considering his future.

The first four new episodes of George Gently was screened last night on BBC1 and it one of the best if not the best of this five series drama about which I have written extensively in the past including three of his early books, disappointing only because they are set in East Anglia the home of the author with the TV series set in Northumbria.

Great Northern Soul

is about race bigotry fuelled by the infamous Enoch Powell Rivers of Blood Speech of April 1968. While the character of Gently is played by the likeable Martin Shaw (Judge Deed) also as Lewis Collins News Avengers, Inspector Dalgliesh - PD James and The Chief, Rhodes and Cranford whereas his Sergeant is a weasel young man full of prejudices about everyone and everything.

The scene is set in a 1960’s all nighter to records held at a local hall where 45 play records are also traded, and unlicensed, the only drink on sale is orangeade. The popular club is used by some of the then few black/mixed race young people in the North East which until as late as the eighties racism was rampant at all levels within the regional society and where tribalism still remains a significant feature. The introduction suggests that two men brothers, one who acts as the DJ and another who rents the building for the event, fancy one of two girls, one of whom has West Indian parents with the father settling in the UK after serving in the airforce in World War II. The father is played Ambrose Kenny is played by Eastender Eamonn Walker.

When the girl is found with her head battered in an area known for “working girls” to take their clients Gently’s sidekick assumes she was a Black Prostitute which he leaks to a local press contact to the horror of Gently who was a supporter of the assassinated Marin Luther King. Suspicion causing the death of the girl falls on five men and one woman.

The man who organises these weekly events runs a fish and chip van by day and is the son of a notorious hard man loan shark and white supremacist. This son has a history of GBH. However the most likely candidate is the DJ younger brother who was having an affair with the girl and although the elder brother implied he had sex with the girl, this was talk. The girl was one of those selling drugs at the event to earn money to go to America with her friend wanting to make a career for herself as a singer. Other suspects are the girl’s father and her brother as well as an former variety artist who runs an guest house with a notice saying No Dogs and Whites only and who lives around the corner from the family and who is proved to have sent a note to her father saying the death was good riddance and they all should leave. Gently threatens to close her down once the race relations Act comes into operation.

It with great difficulty the truth is uncovered in part when the Sergeant goes uncover to the all nighter and befriends the best friend of the killed girl as well as the DJ son of the racist criminal. He forms an emotional attachment with the young woman which alters his prejudices. It emerges that the dead girl was pregnant and that on the night of her death the young brother DJ had been told to end the relationship by his father and had become incensed when seeing the girl with the older brother who claimed to have had a sexual relationship with her as well. He had in fact given her £20 from his father to arrange an abortion. The girl had resisted his advances to take her home.

She was also upset on seeing her boyfriend make a successful pass at her best friend and she had set off alone to walk home in the middle of the night. The girl’s father turned out to be different from the story he had presented of himself claiming to have been a pilot with medals when he had remained in a desk job having been refused permission to switch to an active service role. Later he explains he had adopted the role to try and counter the aggro the children were getting at school because of the colour of their skin. The brother is turning to the militant black movement as a reaction to the passivity of his father and the reaction of the white community.

In fact the daughter was not murdered as such but died as a result of a hit and run accident by a drunk driver who was taking a prostitute to the area she used. She came forward after reading that Gently had reminded that the dead girl was someone’s daughter whatever in reality were her true circumstances. Before this is communicated the fascist father of the brothers organises an attack on a vigil being held for the girl and in the ensuing mêlée the older brother is stabbed to death. It emerges that the death was caused by the younger brother. This occurs after the girl’s father tried to confess to this crime after seeing that the knife belonged to his son. The Rivers of Blood speech fuels the feelings in the local community finding support in the police. The guest house owner puts back her sign saying Whites only and the henchmen of the Fascist and now grieving father wreck the home of the West Indian background family. The father gets his war time weapon to kill the Fascist racist but is persuaded by his son and Gently to hand it over. This first of four episodes was made sometime ago, before the Olympic Games when one long distance runner Mohammed Farah and one 30 year old female Boxer Nicola Adams changed the position of migrant and non white citizens in the UK, hopefully for the better and for all time. This proved to be an excellent and potentially significant programme.

2335 Scum Murdoch overplays his hand

I break from catching up on dramas and sport on television during July and August to consider just how politically dangerous Rupert Murdock is becoming and needs to be stopped, but over a period of time and away from the public and political gaze.

I was not fooled by his appearance before the Commons Committee or Leveson or by the protestations of three British Prime Ministers that they used him without dancing to his tune during the past 15 years. The one politician to come out of this sorry affair with reputation enhanced remains Ed Miliband.

It is increasingly evident that Murdoch Senior is seeking vengeance on the English and their Westminster Parliament for turning on him and his staff now bringing several before the courts charged with conspiracy and other offences which could lead to imprisonment if proven. I suggest that in turning on GB and a son of Princess Diana he has not only shown but overplayed his hand.

It was always evident that Murdoch was opposed to European Integration as a threat to the economic interests of Australia and the USA as well as his approach to politics and business. He was not able to “buy” into the EEC government as he has been here in the UK and with the Republicans in the USA through Fox News in particular.

It therefore came as no surprise when he decided to use Alex Salmond and the Scottish Nationalist party as means of destabilising the Union presumably out of mischievous revenge. His intervention reminds me an early Yes Minister episode where the latest African coup brought to power someone who in accepting an invitation to visit the Queen in Scotland immediately prior to three bi elections drafted a speech supporting independence for the oppressed Scottish people as a means of getting a substantial hand out. In going for a referendum before the next General Election Salmond would have countered on popular support arising from the holding the next Commonwealth games in Glasgow in 2014 without knowing or understanding the impact of the London Olympics on the concept of Team GB. If the Paralympics can sustain and develop the mood of British nationalism created during the past month then outcome of the Referendum as well as the next elections for the Scottish parliament and 2015 General Elections should see his plan ended. I anticipate that the impact of the position of the disabled including those on long term illness will be transformed and also make the present attack on state provision for the disabled and long term sick more difficult to sustain.

Murdoch the revenger has also opposed the continuation of the monarch in a democracy, something which I share without resorting to the unscrupulous misuse of media power, and showing disrespect to the head of state. His decision to order the management and the Editor of the Sun to publish the illegally obtained private photos of a senior member of the Royal Family demonstrates that Murdoch has become as much the low life this paper has always pandered. Scum Murdoch of the scum Sun of the scum classes in team GB is not a legacy he or his family can be proud of.

However while I can this and those in power may think the same it is best that politicians of all the major political parties as well as the Royal Family do not take the bait. The best approach is to ignore his calculated actions in public and set about sealing his fate in the UK in the way the British have always done best. Let Leveson say what he would have said anyway and Parliament act on these recommendations without further reference to a family which is now beyond contempt. By pressing for tougher measures it could unite the print media against action instead of leaving them to take measures against the cowardly sun editor and its UK management.

I will shed no tears if Scum Murdoch is also successful in punishing David Cameron by encouraging Boris Johnson to contest the Tory leadership as a fall guy for one of his more likely right wing nominees. However Boris is too much his own man with a good public following to dance to the Murdoch tune but he could still be the instrument to bring the Cameron House down. In any event whether Cameron stays or is replaced before the next General Election, Ed Miliband is on his way to number ten together with the Lib Dems in what I anticipate will be a second coalition unless the pattern of political disaster and internal strife yields an outright Labour administration.

There is no doubt the next six months will prove a make or break period for Cameron as the way he tackled reducing government debt and maintaining market and financial confidence further unravels and right wing backbencher and other malcontents within his own party cause damaging problems for the coalition while enhancing the position of Labour. This will force the Lib Dems to further reveal their hostility and opposition to more Tory positions and the possibility of the Tories being forced to continue for the rest of the Parliament as a minority government becomes more likely.

The Ministerial future of Jeremy Hunt is one important factor especially since he was seen greeting Rupert Murdoch at the Olympic Games who was in turn a guest of the London Mayor. How Hunt and Cameron respond to the Leveson recommendation will be a major test which Labour should be able to exploit. Just as the Olympic Games has done more to combat racism in this country than recent political interventions I believe political and Palace silence over the publication of the photos here in the UK by the Scum Sun will prove more effective in the medium and longer terms. The spectacle of scum journalists like Calvin Mckensie and his ilk rising to the defence of the Scum Sun will seal their fate. In this respect I understand the fury of the John Prescott when he appeared on newsnight but he should remember that revenge is a dish best served cold. I have every confidence that the majority of the print media owners and editors will sort out the cowardly scum editor of the scum Sun and all those responsible for kow towing to Scum Murdoch.

In fact the more I reflect on what has happened I believe Murdoch in revealing his true colours has commenced to over play his hand. Who was impressed by his recent outburst against the English on his Fox news channel another example of scum media however sophisticated the clothing and which in my estimation is of the same order and level by the Nazis, Stalin and Chinese communists to use media for political suppression of those with whom they disagree? The Monarch, the British Parliament and indeed the British media including the print Media is much bigger that this obnoxious little old man and his family. But we should make no mistake he remains dangerous to the interests of the people of team GB while he possesses media power in the UK and needs to be dealt with by the forces of the decent and the good in the media term. In this respect I say to John Prescott good on you and all power to your elbow.

2334 Final four films from July and Agust 2012

The final round up of films July and August until the bank holiday weekend begins with real life war Second World War heroes. The first film was the last made of the most decorated USA soldier in World War II Audie Murphy. Still a boy when he was sent to Europe for 27 months he was awarded the Medal Honour, the Croix de Guerre, the Legion de Honour, Silver and Bronze Stars, Purple Heart, Presidential Citation and several others. A private soldier in 1942 he rose to the rank of First Lieutenant in 1946 and then to major in the Army Reserves, a rank he retained when he was officially retired in 1969.

Born in 1924 to poor sharecroppers of Irish descent he is one of twelve children who went to work at 14 leaving school when his father abandoned his family. He was responsible for the three youngest children being placed in an orphanage to ensure their care but took direct care again immediately on his discharge from the army in 1945. He suffered depression, insomnia and nightmares from his experiences which led him to campaign for understanding and treatment, especially for those returning from Korea. The effects of war affected his relationship with him married three times and two children.

In addition to his career with over forty films he owned several ranches and wrote country music. He wrote an important biography From Hell to Eternity, staring in the film. His last film 40 Guns to Apache Pass was a standard Western of the era. In this film Murphy plays a hard nosed young commander who beats up a Corporal for stealing water while out on patrol. News reaches the fort Apache Wells that the Apache's under Cochise are massing and on the warpath and heading towards the fort.

 

 

The Fort commander has pressed the army for the new repeating riffles and learns that an assignment of forty of these weapons with ammunition is being brought to them but only part way to Apache Pass and Murphy is assigned to take a small group to bring them to the fort. The party includes the man he humiliated who is seeking revenge and two young lads whose father has been killed both inexperienced and one pressurised against his natural instincts into joining up by his elder brother. They are left in charge of the horses while the rest of the team collect the guns during which time the brother is captured and then killed despite pleas for help to the younger brother who afraid lies low.

The guns are collected but the soldier humiliated by Murphy persuades the rest of the group to take the guns and sell them in Mexico. Murphy escapes with his life just. He returns in disgrace to the Fort a failure but then breaks out from being confined in order to locate the guns and rescue the fort.

The coward younger brother turns to help Murphy when he finds that the guns are to be sold for gold to the Apache. Murphy sends the young lad back to the fort with the majority of the weapons for help while he uses some of them to hold off the Apache for as long as possible after tackling the rogue troop. He is rescued and returns to the fort and reinstated. He is also able to keep part of his promise to the sister of the young man to get him home, without revealing what occurred beforehand. Their previously blossoming relationship can now flourish.

Audie Murphy died in a plane crash at the age of 46 in 1971. Two years earlier he had survived a charge of murder with the jury accepting his plea of self defence.

Whereas a great deal is known about Audie Murphy, his wartime exploits and his film career I suspect no one still had heard the name of Sgt Don Smith who is the subject of Everyman’s War and served in the USA 94^th Infantry Division. His story is covered by the film title of Everyman’s War. I was not able to substantiate the facts separately from those in the film.

He is portrayed as an ordinary young man who was attracted to a young woman who moved from his home area about the time he was called up as a Private in the Infantry and sent over to Europe via England to take part in the Battle of the Bulge. It is a conventional tale told many times of young men who becomes hardened by the reality of fighting and who suddenly finds themselves in a situation where he is called upon to exercise a significant act of courage which had significant impact on the future lives of his comrades as well as affecting the outcome of an aspect of a battle. In this assistance having been placed in charge of a group asked to take and hold a position having been promoted to Sgt he discovers that the enemy have launched a counter offensive on during sub zero conditions and a blizzard and made his way wounded and unarmed to the local military HQ to warn of the coming attack.

He returns home and decides to follow up the girl he left behind and the film closes with the couple now in the late autumn of their years looking back on their life together and he on his experience still regretting the loss of comrades and that he has become one of the last surviving of those involved. The film was originally released in Spain as Los Héroes de Las Ardenas and is based on a book published and advertised of the site of the 94^th regiment.

I enjoyed Galaxy Quest the 1999 comic film about space travel and Television. The film is a parody of Star trek and its fanatical fans. Galaxy Quest was a long standing popular television space drama and two decades after the final performance the stars are still attending conventions. I recently discovered that the biggest Star Trek convention outside the USA is being held at the Excel Stadium with day sessional tickets from £30 to VIP packages at £3000 for the weekend gathering.

At the latest gathering for Galaxy Quest the principal actors are approached by a group of humans to see their space ship unaware it is a real craft and that their hosts are shape shifting aliens taking human form. The group are part of a society that has adopted the morality of the TV series proclaiming the actors as national heroes. It is only when they are transported into space that the actors are old that the group are the last of the population the subject of a genocide by the Saris another alien race who are seeking the Omega 13 a planet destroying device which featured towards the end of the Galaxy Quest series. The Thermians are very trusting people with no concept of acting and are relying on the actors to save their civilization. The saving aspect of the situation is that the creatures have made reality the devices portrayed in the TV Series.

Attempting to escape their pursers their ship is damaged during a minefield and requires new fuel for the reactor and while they are able to locate the material they have no idea how to repair the craft. This is crucial when the Saris capture the craft and set of a self destruct sequence. Fortunately he is able to communicate with an avid series fan in communication with other fans who know everything there is to know about the series and its fictional technologies. With the help of the fans they are able to abort the sequence initiated by the Saris who have captured the craft and becoming the heroes of their series rescues themselves and the remaining Thermians.

What makes the film credible and funny is the super strong cast with Alan Rickman who is the brains of the original series. Sgourney Weaver is another big name who in the series is the communications Officer and computer expert. The actor Tim Allen whose voice was used for Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story plays the Commander of the fictional series. It was all great fun with a multitude of clever references to the TV Space series industry.

Part of the 21^st Century translation of the comic book into 3D action film is the Green Lantern and which not a Lantern as such but a brotherhood of exceptional chosen beings to save the known galaxy from destruction. The brotherhood, the Guardian of the Universe, was formed millions of years before the creation of earth as an intergalactic police force with one individual for each of 3600 sectors. At some point in the past one of the Guardians defeats a rogue member called Parallax and imprisoned the being within a planet. When he is unintentionally freed he commences his revenge, killing Guardians and destroying planets, successfully seeking out the one who imprisoned him and following a battle the Guardian crashes on the planet earth close to where a Test pilot lives and using his ring to find a worthy successor on this planet.

Only beginning to be aware of the power of this ring the pilot finds himself transported across the universe to the base planet of the Guardians where those responsible for the leadership and training cannot understand why he has been chosen and set out to prove he is an inappropriate candidate as the man he replaces was one of their finest. They are successful convincing the individual who returns to earth and his life as a test pilot.

Back home the sub story commences when the creature and his transport is examined at a secret government facility. Unfortunately an aspect of the Parallax has remained and takes over the investigating scientist who has been given the task through the influence of his father hoping his son will begin to show some of the characteristics of himself. Alas the man begins to possess some of the powers of Parallax and uses these telepathic and telekinetic in a negative and destructive away, attempting to kill his father as he leaves by helicopter at a party attended by the Test pilot. The Test pilot is able to stop the helicopter crashing using the power of his ring, saving various guests, including his childhood sweetheart and a fellow Test Pilot. She is able to work out that the man who turns into a Green Lantern is the Test pilot.

The film returns to the main subject back on the base planet when it is earned that the Parallax is using fear to eliminate other Guardians and destroy planet and the suggestion is made to create a counter process which will involved the destruction of earth because of the link with the affected scientist. On earth the Lantern realises that he was chosen by the ring because he is fearless and therefore can counter the destructive force. Using his power and strength he lures Parallax into the gravitational pull of the sun causing the end of the being thus he not only saves earth but the base planet and the Guardian brotherhood. He is recognised as a worth successor to the star performer he replaced. Because the film was not as successful at the box office as expected turning the first film into a trilogy was in doubt but now appears back on the agenda.

2333 Second quartet of July August 2012 films with Life of the Rileys the best

In the second week of July2012 I experienced a moving film Formosa Betrayed described as a political thriller and which exposes the treatment of the indigenous people of the of the Islands of Taiwan in the South China Sea and which has remained a football between the Communist and anti Communist forces of the mainland.

 

The factual history of the Island is that following the victory of the Communists on mainland China in 1949 the then government of China moved to Formosa claiming sovereignty over all China and Mongolia establishing in effect a military dictatorship on the country and suppressing the rights and interests of the indigenous people. As with many other people around the world the USA in particular was prepared to tolerate the abuses of human rights, the political imprisonment and the killings because the state was Anti Communist, and other Western nations followed suit. However since the democratisation of the country and the introduction of the freedom of the press, health care and public education as well as economic development which makes the country with a powerful economy and high per capita income, only 22 minor nations and the Vatican state formerly recognise the Government. Of the 22 there are several nations of significance in central and South America including Haiti, El Salvador, Panama, Paraguay, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras and the Dominican Republic.

Portuguese sailors named the Island Formosa, Beautiful Island, in the sixteenth century. It is understood that the forefathers of the indigenous people did originate from China as farmers 2000 BC followed by the Dutch East India Company and the Spanish with the islands subsequently proving a battleground for the French in their war against China. The Japanese moved in in 1894 to 5, The Japanese rule developed the country attempting to assimilate the population in the 1930‘s with the consequence that that tens of thousands of locals served in Japanese Military during World War II and which helped to colour the view of the mainland Chinese subsequently. Japanese bases and industrial centres on Taiwan were the subject of heaving USA bombing.

After the war the mainland power put down resistance from the ingenious people with brutal ferocity with an estimated 18000 to 30000 civilians executed in the educated and management classes. When the Communists gained ascendancy an estimated 2 million mainlanders, comprising the government and military with families increased the population by a quarter bringing with them gold and art treasures and foreign currency reserves. Martial law was imposed and lasted four decades. An estimated 140000 civilians were executed often tortured for being suspected communist sympathisers although in truth as in all such situations anyone who challenged or criticised officials put themselves and their families at risk. It was not until 2008 that the extent of the horror was admitted and regretted although no compensation, restitution or formal investigation into the crimes has been initiated.

 

It was not until the deaths of Chiang Kai-shek and his son that an indigenous born subject came to power and progressed democracy and liberalization. The leading coalition party in government agreed that Taiwan should have a separate identity from China but with 64% favouring the status quo with less than 20% seeking full independence and 5% wanting unification.

This then is the background to the 2009 USA film Formosa Betrayed when an FBI agent is sent to Taiwan after a Taiwanese Professor is murdered at University covered by Chicago. In 1981 Professor Chen Wen-Chen of Carnegie Mellon University. He returned to this beloved homeland with his family but was held in custody over his comments about the totalitarian nature of the regime and was found dead without explanation to the cause. In the film the FBI agent is sent to Taiwan and is with a cover story which attempted to link the Professor to criminal gangs responsible for his death.

The FBI agent is treated as an honoured guest but given the run around but with the help of local journalist and others begins to uncover the truth about the nature of the totalitarian state and USA complicity which also involves the Chinese Mafia as well as the Kuomintang. The film also uses the assassination of Journalist Henry Liu in California by Chinese gang members under the direction of the Kuomintang secret service. He had become a naturalised USA citizen.

The other face of the USA is portrayed in the Fighting Seabees with John Wayne playing of his heroic and romantic roles as the tough boss of a construction company contracted to build airstrips in the Pacific for the US Navy during World War II and who is persuaded to head the first Construction battalion after his well intention intervention after some of his men are killed in a Japanese attack results in a military counter offensive plan being wrecked. Susan Hayward plays a war correspondent assigned to cover the activities of the construction unit and provides the romance when she is pursued by the local military commander but has eyes only for Wayne who is not the marrying kind. She nearly dies but ends up with Wayne as the film ends. The second part of the film demonstrates that with military trained the unit plays an important role in the defence of an island leading to the defeat of the enemy. The film also stared William Forrest.

I am still not sure what to make of Across the Line the Exodus of Charlie Wright. The Direction of this film is intended for us to have some sympathy for Charlie Wright whose business is revealed as a Ponzi scheme, He is therefore a bad man who causes financial ruin to greedy people. He is assessed as having stolen eleven million dollars. He is pursued by an FBI agent who comes close to capturing him but the man escapes and disappears.

Charley has in fact gone to Tijuana the Mexican Border city in search of the woman he abandoned two decades earlier. He forms a relationship with a lonely whore as she ages and spends her money on expensive formula creams to mask her aging. Charlie lives simply and forming a relationship with the woman he learns that his former love has died but has a daughter who entered the USA illegally. I was confused as whether he manages to locate his daughter and have a conversation with her or has a conversation with someone who knows of his daughter and that she is content.

The story is complicated by a group of Gangsters and another of Mercenaries who seek to kidnap and use Charlie for their own ends. An FBI agent on holiday in the city spots Charlie much to the disbelief of the pursing FBI agent who nevertheless goes to Mexico to check out the sighting. Charlie surrenders himself as a means of escape from his pursuers but is allowed to continue his exile when the FBI learns that Charlie has only a few months to live from cancer and because he provides the information on where the money is deposited. Charlie end his days sitting on a bench by a beach supposedly at peace, although why he should be is not something I understand.

James Gandolfini

came to international attention through his award winning role as Tony Soprano in the six season series which I have watched with continuous episode showing over the past year. I was therefore interested to see him in the film Welcome to the Rileys which I viewed at the end of July 2012. While he is Tony in several mannerisms and through his bulky being, he plays a very different, interesting and sympathy arousing character who has been unable to have normal marital relations with his wife who has been unable to leave her home since the death of their daughter when only fourteen years or so of age. He consoles himself with a waitress although it is evident they share a bed for a few hours it is not clear they have penetrative sex. He offers to take her on a trip to New Orleans to attend a business convention attending by his business partner/manager. Before this she suddenly dies and this is event which tips over the edge in his grief.

New Orleans before and since Katrina remains a city where men go to conventions and enjoy the drink, the jazz and the sex and in this instance Gandolfini encounters a under age stripper prostitute no more than his daughter, said to be sixteen in the film. For a brief moment I thought this was to turn out another Breezy in which middle aged William Holden picks up and has an affair with a teenage hippie kind of girl. Welcome to the Rileys ( no relation to the Mother Riley films by the way) is a very different film in which Gandolfini follows the girl to where she is living in a slum and offers her $100 a day to live in the same house which he cleans up and escorts her to and from work. He announces he is giving up his business and tells his wife he had decided to stay in New Orleans for a while.

Before leaving on the trip she, played by Kirsten Stewart, discovers the extent of his grief and guilt over the death of his daughter (a without knowing his grief over the death of the waitress) and she determines to leave the house and go to him. Her effort to leave the house and get to New Orleans is undertaken with warmth and humour so it is a shock to her when she finds her husband staying with a foul mouthed young whore. The nature of their previous relationship, the shared tragedy and the people they are still leads her to understand what has happened and she too also sees something of their lost daughter in this girl as some of her background is revealed. The three form an unconventional family but the situation does not last and eventually the girl runs off and the couple return to their home and commence to move on in their lives re-engaging with the world. The film ends as the girl contacts them. She is on her way to Los Vegas but James reassures her that she has the love and support of himself and his wife and she should not hesitate to turn to them if need arises.

The film has attracted positive responses with the director awarded a prize at the Sundance Festival. Kristen Stewart best actress at the Milan Festival with James a Best Actor nominee. While the response of critics has been mixed this in my view is best of the July and August bunch.

2332 Four films viewed in July and August 2012

I had intended to finish my Olympic Games 2012 experience with a golden moments review but as the days goes by with a visit to family and to cricket at Nottingham, followed by what should be a fourth successive win in the County Championship I have decided to begin a catch up between now 17.45 August 22^nd and September 7^th when I return to London for a brief visit to watch a morning swimming event at the Paralympic games

I begin with some films and then some other sport and TV and the hopefully the Golden moments. 33 Postcards was an unexpected and unplanned film viewing joy as the first Australia-China co production directed by Pauline Chan. A Chinese girl in an orphanage has her education sponsored by an Australian who sends her the post cards over a ten year period. When the orphanage is invited to visit Australia and perform with its choir. The girl, now a naive sixteen year old helps train the choir as a conductor, goes on the trip and takes the opportunity to try and locate her sponsor to express her thanks.

She finds that the sponsor is an inmate of a correctional facility have killed a man who was in a building which he set fire with his brother for the insurance on behalf of a local criminal enterprise. With limited English the girl quickly finds herself involved with the gang through the son of a garage owner who she meets collecting loan shark money for the one of the criminal fraternity who is also an inmate in the same institution as her sponsor.

This lad is basically decent despite involvement in aspects of the criminal life of his father, helping to transform stolen cars into new identities as well as the loan sharking collections. He wants a different life going to college to learn to become a cook and first helps the girl to visit the sponsor in prison and then to remain in Australia while she attempts to find a way to help the man who she regards as a father figure as his parole is due. The sponsor at first rejects the girl never imagining that she would find a way to visit Australia and then he finds that she is a way of helping him to come to terms with the crime he committed and assuage the overwhelming sense of guilt. He is helped by the prison counsellor who is impressed that for a decade he had used funds to sponsor the girl and is prepared to arrange for him to help her stay in Australia through placement with foster parents. The authorities want him to provide evidence the crime boss within prison who arranges to beat up and if necessary kill anyway who threatens or fails to provide the money which he requires.

The girl decides to stay in Australian after arrangements are made for her to return to China prematurely because of her attempt to contact her sponsor. She crashes on the sofa of the son of the garage owner and helps to get the stolen cars ready for onward sale without knowing they are stolen. The brother of the sponsor is indebted because he was also a party to the original building burning but was not revealed by the brother who also kept quite about those who had paid him to undertake the crime. The brother is forced to undertake a car theft to help fund his brothers plan to help the girl and the son of the garage owner volunteers to also participate as the way of getting his father to agree to pay for him to go to college. The father also involved the girl as a means of trying to keep control of his son.

The sponsor is given parole and in a panic agrees to give evidence against the prison gang boss in order to obtain immediate release when he hears the girl has become unwittingly involved with the crime gang outside. In the event he and all the parties are arrested and he finds himself back in prison without the promised protection and is stabbed within an inch of his life. He survives and the parole is reinstated when the truth of the situation emerges. The girl decides to return to China and work for the orphanage but having established a more meaningful relationship with the man she regards as her father and she as his daughter. He is able to watch her conduct the choir before returning home with the promise to visit her in China. The film has the accustomed Australian reality edginess with a positive slant on contemporary China which will enable the showing of the film in the mainland. It engaged in part because of its unique subject and strength of the acting.

Columbiana

is a girl power action adventure also covering the development of a young woman from childhood into life as an adult but the contrast between the character in 33 Postcards and the girl Catelya could not be greater. She is present when her parents are executed on behalf of a Columbian Drug Baron because they had wanted out and created an information disk having made contact with the USA authorities. She has already been trained to move with amazing dexterity and after stabbing in the hand the man sent to find the info she escapes the gang, gets to the embassy and into the USA where she makes her way to her mother’s family, and who for some inexplicable reason are unknown to the USA authorities, despite the family connection as well as the uncle’s involvement in crime.

The girl has only revenge in mind but is persuaded to get a good education as well as developing martial art skills. We meet her again when she has become a skilled and sophisticated assassin undertaking assignments arranged by her uncle. The problem from the position of her uncle and grandmother is that she has commenced to freelance in a systematic killing of USA drug lord connections, decorating their bodies with the shape of an orchid bearing her name and which is left as a calling card to gain the attention of the drug lord and his henchman she has vowed to kill.

It quickly emerges that the Drug Lord worked for the CIA and now lives under their protection in New Orleans. They attempt to prevent FBI agent James Ross from the info after he works out the connection between 22 killings over the previous four years. He assumes the killer is a male when a criminal is taken to a police station between prisons. He orders a careful study of everyone at the station on the day and this leads to a partial photo of the girl taken at the station as a drunk and released on bail the following morning but where all the information she provided proved false.

Her uncle becomes aware of what is happening when the FBI man releases information about the drawing on the bodies of the particular orchid. And begs her stop fearing for the life of his mother. There are two developments which lead to the finale. First the FBI is able to identify the girl through a series of increasingly unconvincing events. The girl has established a comes and go sexual relationship with an artist without revealing anything of her past and present life. He has become increasingly attached to her and contemplates asking her to marry him, taking a camera photo while she sleeps. He then shows the photo to a friend admitting his passion for her and lack of info. The friend is able to get hold of the phone and sends a copy of the photo to a police woman contact that uses it to search the national database. This alerts the FBI who locates the artist lover and also the home of the girl. She realises her cover has been blown and makes yet another daring and dramatic escape.

The attempt to bring into the open of the Drug Lord also has the undesired effect of his chief assistant torturing and killing her grand mother and uncle in the effort to find her whereabouts. She then captures the FBI man and threatens his family as a means of learning the location of the Drug Lord. The FBI man visits the CIA and amazingly the girl is in a position with a high velocity rifle to force the CIA man to reveal the location of the Drug Lord in exchanging for his life. There are two spectacular and horrific death finale moments. One in which she kills a criminal feeding him to the sharks he keeps as pets and the other when after a prolonged martial arts fight she stabs the chief assistant with the barrel of a gun in the neck and in the second when after killing about a score of his men it appears the Drug Lord has escaped in his large four wheel vehicle and he tells her he will find and kill her, she discloses that her plan is still in being and she orders the two killer dogs she has trained and placed in the vehicle to eat. She goes off to start a new life and with the artist also released without charge there is the prospect of the two getting together again. The film has been vigorously criticised, including for it’s stereotyping of Columbian culture and is unlikely to sequel given the publicised loss.

Seeking Justice

is also about Revenge, Nicolas Cage is a good English Teacher and husband when his wife on her way home from a concert where she is a musician in the orchestra is attacked in her car and raped. A colleague at work advises that the attacker will be found and brought to justice. Cage is then approached by a stranger who says he is part of an organisation which meters justice to the victims when the system fails. The attacker is known, has raped before and was paroled only weeks before the attack on the wife of Cage. The man offers to arrange justice without his wife having to go through the event again during a trial. The price will be that Cage undertakes a no questions favour later.

Cage agrees and is sent a photo of man when he is killed together the medallion the man had taken from the neck of the wife. The code trigger is used “the hungry rabbit jumps.”

Six months later Cage is asked to follow a woman and her two children to a zoo and report in when she contacts a man. Cage optimistically agrees thinking this is his favour only to find that he is told to follow the man and push him off a walkway to look as an accidental death. He is not prepared to do this and engages the man who he is told is a sex offender. The man is in a state and attacks Cage and in the struggle the man falls despite the attempt of Cage to save him.

Cage is then arrested and taken to a police station where officers are convinced they have the killer of an investigative journalist, the man falling from the walkway. The station Lieutenant insists on interviewing Cage and asks him to complete the sentence “The hungry white rabbit”, and the reply “jumps” and this enables him to leave the station a free man much to horror of the investigating detectives. When he finds that the man who dies is a journalist he attends the memorial services and engages with the man’s colleagues and learns he was investigating a vigilante organisation but that his file on the work has gone missing.

Cage then finds himself under attack from someone who he thwarts and is then killed by a truck as he runs off after disclosing that he was also the subject of vigilante action who required a favour in terms of killing Cage. Cage also goes in search of the work records and discovers a DVD. Meanwhile his wife discovers the medallion in the glove compartment of his car, demands to know what has happened and when he admits the sequence of events she admits she would have behaved in the same way.

In order to make contact with the secret organisation he approaches his colleague at work who first suggested the possibility of the vigilante group and then he attempts to trade the DVD for a security tape which reveals that he did not kill the journalist. This leads to his wife being kidnapped and held hostage in effort to get the tape and also silence the couple. Fortunately with help of the colleagues who loses his life, it is possible for his wife to kill their pursuer and at this point the Lieutenant arrives and tells them to go, saying that from his perspective it looks as if the two men killed each other. Cage is in the clear because he now has the evidence that he did not kill the journalist and decides to provide the evidence of conspiracy disk to someone as the New Orleans Post who I assume is the editor or newsroom chief. He thanks Cage adding The Hungry rabbit jumps revealing that he too is part of the vigilante organisation.

The final film of this first August round up is Behind Enemy Lines and which had a predictable outcome and familiar feel. The film set in Bosnia in 1995 when a USA carrier plane is assigned a Christmas holiday recognisance mission during the ceasefire and a demilitarised zone. The pilot and navigator are ordered on the otherwise routine mission because of their rowdy and anti authority behaviour and because one of the officers has requested to leave the service and become a commercial pilot. When they spot unusual and suspicious activity in the no fly zone they decide to investigate filming with a view to study on return but find themselves shot down on the orders of the local Serbian commander who has been secretly exterminating Muslims using mass graves which the plane has unknowingly filmed.

Because of the truce the Rear Admiral Commanding officer, Gene Hackman is ordered not to use naval helicopters to collect the downed officers and orders them to make their way to safety despite information that they are being hunted by armed forces. One of the officers witnesses the execution of the other who pretended he was the only flier. The reaction of the second officer, albeit at a distance, is sufficient to alert the Serbians who in addition to the regular forces appoint the man who executed the flier to find and execute the other. The second part of the films involves the successful attempt to evade capture which includes hiding himself among bodies in one of the open genocide burial sites. Although prevented from going to rescue the officer Hackman uses satellite surveillance to track the movements and to attempt to persuade the authorities to give permission. Instead of moving to safety the flier decides to return to the crashed aircraft site to retrieve the recordings from the camera located in one of the ejector seats. Hackman also decides to risk his command by taking three helicopters with volunteers to retrieve his man and the film.

Although he has the recordings the officers remains on the scene to await the arrival of the man who executed his navigator and kills him after a hand to hand combat. The Film advises the audience that the Rear Admiral lost his command and retired rather than accept a desk job in Washington. The pilot who had decided to resign his commission elects to remain in the force. Yjis of course is all fiction.

The film has some basis in reality as a USAF Captain Scott Brady was shot down in Bosnia on 2 June 1995 and survived for six days before being extracted (rescued). He commenced legal action because the film was made without his permission and because of the way his character is portrayed. The producers demonstrated that the film was fictional and bore no resemblance to the experience of O’Grady who did not interact with civilians, entered populated areas or flew a plane of the same make. The film was primarily concerned with bringing to attention once more the genocide which the Serbians committed. Two sequels have been made which went straight to DVD and which may appear on TV in due course.