"A most ungentlemanly act"

You Tube ^ | 8th Nov 2013 | BBC

[Vanders9]

Based on actual accounts, this film portrays the days and hours before and during the invasion of the Falkland Islands by Argentina, which eventually lead to the Falklands War.

[Vanders9]

In my opinion, this is the best film made about the Falklands war (although it only really covers the first 24 hours). Alternately factual, dramatic and darkly humerous, with some really good battle scenes and a great cast, headed by the excellent Ian Richardson, I saw it years ago but I dont think it ever got a big release, so most non-Brits will probably never have seen it. If you have a spare couple of hours, you could do a lot worse than this. Warning - contains violence, the odd racist comment, and a considerable amount of barrack room ribaldry and swearing!

[Chainmail]

Ping for later viewing

[rlmorel]

Thanks, Vanders9, I am going to check it out!

[rlmorel]

Fascinating. I am at the part where the Argentines have secretly landed, and the governor is getting to get a couple of hours of sleep, not knowing there has been a landing.

The DJ at the island’s only radio station puts on “Yesterday” by the Beatles, and the scene switches back to the Governor getting into bed with the radio playing “Yesterday” in the background.

All hell was going to break loose, and everyone on those little islands is listening to the same thing, hearing things the same way, and when they all hear that song years later, they probably remember well that night when the song played.

Seems so much simpler and easier then. Now, you might have a thousand different people at random who literally found out about something went down by a thousand different ways.

One person might get it on twitter. Someone else might see it on the BBC website for the first time. A person might actually be playing a massive online game when the word spreads between players.

And someone will still see it over an air transmission on their television.

I just found the contrast just as interesting as all get out.

[rlmorel]

Now, back to the movie...:)

[rlmorel]

Excellent battle scenes. Very well done. The tracers from the heavy weapons really give the impression of the kinetics.

[rlmorel]

“Whaaaat...nobody here who speaks Spanish? F***ing marvelous.”

[PotatoHeadMick]

An absolutely superb move and as you say Ian Richardson is brilliant, but then so are all the characters, loved the scene with Nanny going off with a bottle of gin and a picture of the Queen, “Looks like you’ve got the priorities right, Nanny”, says the governor’s son. Or the scene were the old gardener sits with his shotgun pointing at the still-flying Union Jack, threatening to shoot the first Argie bastard that tries to take it down.

If I am not wrong in the scene were the Falkland Islands Defence Forces chaps stop to have a sandwich as the Marines make a run for Government House, the chap who mutters “bloody Marines” is played by the actual Marine colonel portrayed in the movie, he was there as a consultant.

In the scene where the victorious Argentines shout “Argentina! Argentina!” on the street, the Argies were played by members of the crew and some Uruguayan fishermen whose ship was in port, no locals would take those parts and apparently the director said it was the only time he felt a sense of animosity from the normally hospitable islanders during the shooting.

[PotatoHeadMick]

I love it were the DJ warns the Argies are coming and then puts on Sinatra’s “Strangers in the Night”.

[PotatoHeadMick]

You actually feel yourself ducking as the tracers come winging in.

[rlmorel]

LOL...absolutely.

[rlmorel]

Yeah...seeing it like that enabled me to grasp for split second what one of those would do if it hit a man.

I hope I never have to see that.

[Monterrosa-24]

There was an evening in El Salvador in 1989 where I witnessed tracers going ground to ground back and forth, air to ground, and ground to air. And to top it off mortar-launched parachute flares were illuminating parts of San Salvador. It was quite a spectacle viewed relatively safely from a quiet neighborhood.

[agere_contra]

The best film about the Falklands War is ‘The Falklands Play’. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Falklands_Play

[Vanders9]

I think the contrast is one the great appeals of the film. The quiet, restrained very bucolic lifestyles of the islanders - no internet, no tv, just radio and videos - and then suddenly violent action totally changing their whole world. It really made me think.

[Vanders9]

Yes thats pretty good too, although it has a different emphasis - namely political. I still prefer “a most ungentlemanly act” though :)

[Vanders9]

Personally I favor the three-four scenes which illustrate the wisdom of Colour-Sergeant Muir. :)

[PotatoHeadMick]

As he sees the journos trying to get a photo of the FIDF from the door of the hall, he calls out a crisp “Gentlemen” as he briskly approaches them, “Fuck off!” as he slams the door on their faces.

Lovely.

[PotatoHeadMick]

As a five-year-old, my mother held me up to the open window of my grandmother’s bathroom so I could watch an attack on the British Army’s Bligh’s Lane base in Derry Northern Ireland on a summer evening in 1972.

It was certainly something any small boy would enjoy, watching a stream of tracer fire whizzing into and bouncing off the compound and listening to the crack-thump of the British SLR’s (the rifles used in this movie) as the Brits returned fire.