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I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

If one is looking for or expecting a war movie filled with action, "Sword of Honour" will not do. Likewise, if one wants a nice English war film with some romance or loved ones left back home. No! Evelyn Waugh's trilogy put to film based on some of his World War II experiences is nothing like the romantic or heroic images we so often have from movies about WW II. Nor is it a gritty account of the gripping experiences of war, death and destruction so common in more modern war films that tend to bring the gore to the fore. "Sword of Honour" is none of these things. Yet it has traces of each, along with much more. The three novels incorporated quite well into this film are "Men at Arms" (1952), "Officers and Gentlemen" (1955), and "Unconditional Surrender" (1961). Waugh wrote his books from his diverse experiences of wartime service. He had kept a diary, and many of his characters are based on or are conglomerations of people he had known in the service. A couple of themes common to most of Waugh's fiction are present here. His Catholic faith and wrestlings with class distinctions are interwoven in his many exploits. The story outline and reviews elsewhere discuss the plot. I would just point out that this is a very unusual look at the military and wartime service. Comedies have a lot of fun poking fun at the military. But when a film is not a comedy – as this one is not, the exposure of so much that is wrong or that goes haywire is truly unflattering. As such, this film is satirical without being a satire. It gives account after account of ineptitude, fraud, incompetency, irony and miscues that belie any honorable notion about the military services and wartime culture. All of this is seen as experienced by Waugh's main character, Guy Crouchback, played very well by Daniel Craig. He encounters a plethora of characters. Some are fun and entertaining – if not to Crouchback, to the novel readers and film audience, such as Brigadier Ritchie-Hook. Robert Pugh plays the seemingly fearless veteran Army officer with pugnacity equal to the character. Guy Henry plays the scornful and scary Ludovic superbly. He is a sardonic and mentally disturbed character. Richard Coyle is excellent as Trimmer McTavish. He is the perfect foil to Guy's image of what an honorable officer and gentleman should be. This is made more ironic by the ruse of Trimmer's heroism and rise to high rank and honor from the lowly civilian occupation of a hairdresser. Great satire, indeed. Other actors lend panache, pathos, humility or humor to their roles as appropriate to each character. One other aspect that sets this film apart is its unusual portrayal of the wartime love or romance component. Guy's estranged wife, Angela, is a party girl, carouser, and playmate who lives for pleasure, with no sense of responsibility or respectability. Selina Cadell plays the role superbly. The title of the film comes from a little known factual story that Waugh relates in the third novel. It describes the circumstances of the Sword of Stalingrad. King George VI ordered a special long sword to be decorated with jewels and presented from the British people to the Soviets who defended the city in the battle that turned the war against Germany on the eastern front. Prime Minister Winston Churchill presented the sword to Joseph Stalin on Nov. 29, 1943, at the Tehran Conference, in the company of President Franklin Roosevelt. The movie does not include this historical situation, but the screenplay deftly covers much of the trilogy in its 3½-hour time. Toward the end, Crouchback's faith and honor rise above all the experiences he has had. He marries his former wife a second time so that her child by McTavish won't be born out of wedlock. And, after Angela is killed in a bombing raid over London, Crouchback returns at the end of the war to embrace the innocent son he has brought into the world honorably. This is not an exciting film to watch. But it is interesting and enjoyable. It's an honest account of a different picture of wartime service, especially in Britain. It's a picture that's not at all flattering about the military or culture of the time. And, it's a fine example of a lengthy literary work being expertly put on film.

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

Guy Crouchback has a problem. He believes in war as a great cause, but finds World War Two itself, wanting.This two part film based on Evelyn Waugh's Sword of Honor is not the first rate production Brideshead Revisited was, but it captures some of Waugh's dismay with World War Two.It is surprising Waugh found so much fault. Wars since have never come close to matching the sheer resolution that went into winning the great war that surpassed in every way the "Great War" that had preceded it.The film is fairly commercial but captures many of the story points of Sword of Honor. As an antiwar film though, it doesn't even come close to matching Catch 22, the great American war novel turned movie that Mike Nichols directed in 1969. Catch 22 the movie was considered a failure. So what to make of this one? Its a failure too, an even bigger one. But for those interested in Waugh, it is a gateway to one of his lesser known books. I've been reading Waugh for years but never heard much about this one. Seeing this movie has firmed my resolve to get an Amazon Reseller paperback if possible- my sister bought Kite Runner for 33 cents!- and see what the novel was about.

Once again a substantial literary work (3 novels) has been shoehorned into 200 minutes or so of television but this time without the gross omissions that usually occur in exercises of this kind. Partly this is because of the fair amount of action which takes up a lot of literary space but which can be economically depicted on the screen.Evelyn Waugh had a pretty scrappy Second World War, but he used his illegally kept diary to good effect. His semi-autobiographical hero, Guy Crouchback goes into what he thinks is a God - ordained crusade against evil, only to discover that the war is the ideal environment for liars, cheats, cowards and phonies of all varieties. His egregious acquaintance Trimmer becomes a war hero by accident and is promoted to Colonel. The evil Corporal Ludovic who murders his C O gets commissioned while good men die everywhere. Every attempted noble act by Guy misfires, and only at the end does he finally achieve some nobility as the putative father of Trimmer's child.Guy's position is not helped by the fact that his once and later wife Virginia (Megan Dodds) is a vain little tramp who uses men so obviously it's a wonder they are taken in. Guy's emotional IQ is so low he manages to fall for her twice. Well, perhaps the second time around he was after some nice redeeming suffering - he did have some insight - but in retrospect Virginia's demise seems a blessed relief.Generally though, this was a decent effort. Highlights included the Crete and Croatian sequences and the great portrayals of Ludovic, Major Hound and Brigadier Ritchie-Hook the truly crazy brave military idiot, who was at least able to admit that he enjoyed all that killing'n stuff. Daniel Craig's Guy is also a very measured performance. He has a face on which one can read inner suffering like one reads a weather dial. It was also nice to see that perennial lightweight Leslie Phillips (of 'Carry On' fame) bringing some gravitas to the role of Guy's aristocratic father.I haven't read the books in this case, but if the portrayal of Mrs Stitch, the society grand dame in the production is anything like that in the trilogy it's a wonder Lady Diana Cooper, who was still alive when they were published, didn't sue. Lady Diana is thought to be the real-life model for the character, who cheats on her absent husband with a young war hero, destroys Guy's mail and pulls strings to get him transferred back to England so he can't blow the gaff on what her 'hero' really did in Crete (desertion).Anyway, I am now inspired to read the books, which on previous experience should be no hardship. Evelyn Waugh was an intriguing character who started out as an angry young literary man in the 1920s and finished up a reactionary old fart in the 1960s, his time long gone. Yet he was one of the greatest English literary stylists of the 20th century, equally adept at satire ('Decline and Fall', 'Scoop') and serious work ('Brideshead Revisited', Sword of Honour'). This production suitably honours his memory and isn't a bad bit of television in its own right.