‘Breaker’ Morant [Breaker Morant] ***** (1980, Edward Woodward, Bryan Brown, Jack Thompson, John Waters, Lewis Fitz-Gerald) – Classic Movie Review 7331

Director Bruce Beresford’s powerful and authentic 1980 drama ‘Breaker’ Morant is one of the gems of the first wave of the New Australian Cinema.

It is 1901, in the Transvaal. British adventurer Harry ‘Breaker’ Morant (Edward Woodward) and two Aussie officers, Lieutenant Peter Handcock and Lieutenant George Ramsdale Witton (Bryan Brown, Lewis Fitz-Gerald) are court-martialled as scapegoats for taking the law into their own hands by murdering Boer prisoners who killed and mutilated a British officer during the Boer War when the General Staff were ordering Boer prisoners shot.

Director Beresford is really on top of this Kenneth G Ross play-to-film transfer, while Woodward as unbending Harry ‘Breaker’ Morant and Jack Thompson as the defending officer Major J F Thomas lead the fine gallery of prize performances. Acting wise, it is Woodward’s finest hour in the cinema, along with The Wicker Man, inheriting the part after Alan Bates turned it down.

It is authentic both as cinema and as history, and it is beautifully done. The anti-British stance comes over loud and clear.

The Oscar-nominated screenplay is by Jonathan Hardy, Bruce Beresford and David Stevens, who died on 17 July 2018, aged 78. He was also the writer of The Sum of Us (1994) and director of The Clinic (1982) and Kansas (1988).

Terence Donovan played Harry ‘Breaker’ Morant in the original 1978 Melbourne stage production of ‘Breaker Morant: A Play in Two Acts’, but has a subsidiary role as Captain Simon Hunt in the film.

Also in the cast are John Waters, Charles ‘Bud’ Tingwell, Bryan Brown, Vincent Ball, Ray Meagher, Chris Haywood, Russell Kiefel, Rod Mullinar, Rob Steele, Chris Smith and Barbara West.

It won ten Australian Film Institute 1980 awards, including Best Film and Best Director. They gave the Best Actor award to Jack Thompson and not Edward Woodward. Lewis Fitz-Gerald and Charles ‘Bud’ Tingwell were defeated as Best Supporting Actor by Bryan Brown.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7331

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