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Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Sorry, this movie sucks

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

I regret that I must strike a discordant note here. All the other reviews of 'Sharpe's Company' are highly positive, but the film left me feeling uneasy.It certainly has many strengths. The photography is good, as are the action scenes. The period feel is effective, and the history accurate. Sean Bean provides an impressive screen presence, ably supported by a good cast.And yet...Several things stick in the gullet. How does the evil Sgt Hakeswill character get away with so much? Sharpe is an officer, and so can outrank him at every turn, but he only seeks to thwart Hakeswill from time to time, when it suits him. This allows Hakeswill to get away with - literally - murder, several times.Why didn't Sharpe make more effort to protect the charming and likable Sally Clayton (Louise Germaine)? Hakeswill made his designs on her clear from an early stage, but no-one stopped him raping and murdering her at the end.I realise that it is only fiction. Nonetheless, drama like this requires belief, empathy with the characters and a sense of poetic justice - and none of this was fulfilled by the Hakeswill parts of the plot.Allowing Hakeswill to get away with so much also resulted in enormous holes in the plot. Why was Hakeswill not punished for shooting the boy ensign in the back? There were no French around at the time whom he could have claimed to be shooting at, and the weapon used could be easily traced to him, as it was an unusual weapon used by very few.How did Hakeswill manage to rape and murder Sally Clayton when the camp would be full of other camp followers and sentries? Why didn't Sharpe chase after him after their fight in the city house at the end? (and thus prevent him from going on to commit the rape and murder). The film shows Sharpe giving up because a few redcoats were in the way - but they didn't stop him racing up to save his 'wife' moments before. He just barged them out of the way then - why not again?.Since Hakeswill was shot and wounded by Harper, why did the last scene of him by Sally Clayton's body - chronologically very shortly after - show him fully fit and unwounded? And so on.These aspects could easily have been resolved with a bit more thought and attention to detail - and a bit more compassion and desire for poetic justice from the writers.It may not have spoilt the film for the other reviewers - but it did for me.

Sean Bean returns as Napoleonic hero Richard Sharpe. This time the action takes place in 1812 around the historical Battle and siege at Badajoz.Sharpe has been demoted to no more than a quartermaster to make a place for an aristocratic fop who has bought Sharpe's captaincy of the light company at horseguards.Sharpe realises that there is only one act of bravery that will help him regain his captaincy and keep it, and that it to lead the the 'Forlorn Hope' the first company that will storm the walls of badajoz when the assault finally begins... in short a suicide mission.Sharpe also has personal reasons to get inside the city, and that is because his wife Teresa and his newborn daughter Antonia, are trapped inside and are in danger of being discovered by the French.Also to add to Sharpes worries, a demon from his past, Sergeant Obidiah Hakeswell has returned to the ranks and is determined to rape, pillage and flog as many people as possible.Pete Postlethwaite gives the performance of the movie as the evil, twitchy Obidiah, and the character of Patrick Harper is brought to the forefront a lot more and Daragh O' Malley really shines.Another great Swashbuckling Sharpe adventure

Sharpe's Company is the third TV film in the series based on Bernard Cornwell novel. It tells the life of Richard Sharpe, an officer who serves in the British Army during the Napoleanic wars. This film is set years after Sharpe's Eagle in 1812 and Sharpe had become a Captain and fathered a child with the Spanish resistance fighter Teresa during that time. At the beginning of the film the British Army fought a tough battle against the French and Sharpe's commanding office Colonel Lawford is badly injured. Because of this he is relieved of his command and a new Colonel takes command of the regiment and bring in his own officers. Sharpe is demoted and loses command of the Chosen Men. Also with the new recruit is Sharpe's old enemy from years before, Sergeant Obidiah Hakeswill (Pete Postlethwaite). The new officers make Sharpe into no more then a desk clerk, and his Chosen Men are being humiliated, being turned into ordinary soldiers. Hakeswill is on a personal vendetta against Sharpe through the siege of Badajoz, sucking up to the officers so he can't be punished and making the Chosen Men do tasks like digging a trench. In the middle of this Teresa is spying for the English in the fortress.What I like about Cornwell novels and the Sharpe films is that it shows a mix picture with the British army and that they was a lot of politics and positioning within the army. The French are casted as the enemy, but they are not made as pure evil, like the English were in Braveheart or the British in the Patriot. The big enemy was with the British army itself. Pete Postlethwaite steals the show as the villain of the film, and he was great being sleazy and psychopathic. They are also solid performance from Sean Bean, Daragh O'Malley and Marc Warren.This is not as action packed as the previous two Sharpe films, but that's because the military focus was on the siege and not any battles. At times it was a little slow, but the personal focus was still needed and in general it was a good Sharpe film.

Sharpe's Company is arguably the best episode in the Sharpe series of movies and one of the few that can truly stand on their own regardless of whether you've seen the previous chapters or not. It achieves this largely because it ticks every box required to make a great Sharpe movie. Dastardly villains? Check. Dashing heroism? Check. Women in peril? Check. One almighty ruck at the ending in which hundreds of people die senselessly? Oh hell you'd better believe there's a check there.The story this time takes place not long after our hero captures the French Eagle at Talavera, a gap of several years in the books but mere months this time around. The English army are on the march and preparing for a full scale invasion of Spain, but before they can expand out of Portugal, they have to capture two French fortress cities on the border: Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz. Rodrigo is taken within the first five minutes and the rest of the running time largely concentrates on the siege of Badajoz with all the trials and tribulations the lads must endure before storming a breach in the walls for the pre-requisite big fight. And Sharpe is especially keen to get inside the city, because his wife Teresa is trapped inside with his eight month old daughter.From this premise, we get a gripping story of men at war. Cannon batteries rain shot after shot on the walls of Badajoz which slowly crumble over the days, while the soldiers sit around doing little but digging trenches and waiting for death to come. They face French excursions to steal their trenching equipment and boredom and while it does not dwell on the matter too much, there is a sense of frustrating tedium among them as the final assault approaches. Sharpe's desire to be first in the breach meanwhile and be promoted to captain does not get as much focus as it does in the novel and instead, the time between fights is concentrated mostly on his rivalry with Obadiah Hakeswill, the insane Sergeant who once had him flogged. Hakeswill is played by none other than Pete Postlethwaite, deviating from his usual father-figure casting by playing one of the most evil men Sharpe will ever meet. He is beset by facial twitches and has a rather perverse view on war and women, lusting after Teresa and tormenting the men in the ranks unless they let him rape their wives. Sharpe's abuse of Hakeswill could have seen him come across as a bit of a bully were it not for Postlethwaite's terrific performance and you can't help but wish he'd kick him around even more than he does, especially when Hakeswill engineers a situation that leads to Harper (Daragh O'Malley) being flogged.And then of course, there's Sean Bean. By this point, he was evidently very comfortable playing the title role and it's not surprising the series made him a star in England. He handles the action scenes like a pro but its in the quieter moments when he shines brightest, especially the elation that washes over him when he first learns of his daughter's existence.But when it comes down to it, what do we all want from the Sharpe series? That's right, battles. Great big ones where the Peninsular is turned into a charnel house filled with corpses and cannon smoke and Sharpe's Company delivers one of the biggest clashes that the South Essex ever gets involved in. With the fortress walls breached, hundreds of English soldiers charge in only to be torn apart by French muskets and cannon fire time and time again until only Sean Bean stands between victory and certain defeat? Can he save the day? Well...it's Sean Bean, what do you expect? In short then, in this humble writer's opinion the best entry in the series. It has everything you'd want from a Sharpe movie, blood, carnage, drama, romance, great big fights and good old Johnny Englishman giving the bally foreigners a damned good thrashing what? Oh and keep your eyes out for Marc "Been in Everything" Warren making a brief appearance as well.