This was a very emotional movie, and it was very well done, with an unforgettable ending. There was one small mistake, but the point of this movie is to manipulate the emotions, not to get every scientific fact correct, so I still gave it a 10/10. In one scene, the soldiers are going swimming, and shells enter the water and explode above them. They are very close to the explosions, close enough to have a solder be hit by shrapnel at speeds fast enough to cut him. Considering water's high viscosity, they must also be very close to the pressure wave generated by the explosion. On land, the shrapnel is more dangerous than the pressure, as air has low viscosity and is also highly compressible, meaning that the blast wave will disperse relatively quickly and with not much force. However, water is not anywhere close to as compressible as air, and so the pressure wave underwater would compress a human's air-filled cavities, such as lungs, in such a way that it would spell out certain death for the human. Once again, this is a movie, and I am holding it to very high standards. The pointI still think that this is an excellent movie, and I highly recommend it, unless you have a very short attention span. It is a bit slow. The ending really is one of the best.

Superb war drama.It is mid-1915. War is raging in Europe and Australian forces have landed in Gallipoli, Turkey. Two friends from Western Australia join up but nothing can prepare them for the horrors that await them in Gallipoli...An excellent study of World War 1, from Australia's point-of-view. Shows well the camaraderie of men in a fighting unit and the larrikinism of the average Australian soldier. Shows too the futility and wastefulness of war, the folly and incompetence of high command and the horrors that make war distinctly unglamourous. Great work from Mel Gibson (in one of his earliest roles) and Mark Lee in the lead roles. Bill Hunter also appears, and puts in a solid performance, as Major Barton.

"Gallipoli" is a film that has been part of my teaching life. I saw it and was thrilled by it the day before I went into my first class as a student teacher. Over the next 30 years it is probably the films I have shown most often to students studying Australian history.There are so many scenes that have stayed with me such as the attack on The Nek and the final freeze frame but I want to point out three others that live on in my mind. Geoff Parry's speech to the troops prior to them being allowed to explore Cairo was a gem. Great writing and the delivery had a deliciously sarcastic tone.The cameo from Diane Chamberlain as Major Barton's wife was heartbreaking. The look on her face as she turns away after imploring her husband to, "Please come home" tells all about what wives and mothers went through.Lastly, Bill Hunter as he drinks a toast on his wedding anniversary as he listens to an aria from an opera and attempts to whistle along with it. He is aware of what is to come the next day but the young troops who look in on him are not. They smile almost patronisingly. Awareness and unawareness has never been more brilliantly portrayed. There are many more great scenes and moments in what is a brilliant film.

There aren't too many films out there that are able to show the forging of a bond between two people and their journey into a hellish ordeal like 1981's "Gallipoli" does. Directed by Australian new wave director Peter Weir, it begins in the land Down Under in the early twentieth century and tells the tale of two unlikely companions, champion sprinter Archy Hamilton (Mark Lee) and railroad worker Frank Dunne (Mel Gibson), as they travel across the Australian landscape to sign up for the army so they can fight in the Great War being waged in Europe, the war that would come to be known in history as World War I. Neither one really knows what the war is about (Archy is more determined to sign up while Frank seems to be along for the ride) but that doesn't stop them from traveling thousands of miles to sign up for the front. Along the way, we the audience come to know and care about them. Archy is someone who is determined to do something with his life and has become caught up in events he doesn't fully understand while Frank is wisely more skeptical but still unable to resist the peer pressure of the time. Eventually they do find their way to the army, becoming separated but meeting again while stationed in Egypt. From there, they are sent on the doomed campaign to take the Gallipoli peninsula held by the Turks and we the audience bear witness to the full tragedy and folly of war that was the eptimany of World War I."Gallipoli" is a film that will stay in your memory for a number of reasons. First and foremost is the level of acting shown by everyone but especially by Mark Lee and Mel Gibson. Lee plays Archy as someone who is both bright but terribly naïve about the realities of the events he is so determined to get involved in while Gibson (in his earlier and better days before everything went off a cliff for him) plays Frank as someone who probably shares the audience viewpoint of why are we fighting this war but still finds himself stuck fighting in what he was skeptical about in the first place. The direction of Peter Weir is clear and crisp and goes a long way to create the story. But above all, what makes "Gallipoli" as haunting as it is is the story it tells and the history behind it. World War I was one of the lousiest wars ever fought in human history, not only because of its high death toll, but also the reason why it was fought to begin with: The stupidity and arrogance of Europe's old guard imperial leaders. When you get around to it folks, that's what it was all about and if you know your history, World War I only sowed the seeds for an even bloodier and more horrific war a little over twenty years later, World War II. By showing a small part of that wider war, a group of innocent kids fighting in the trenches on a doomed campaign, "Gallipoli" hits you hard and it leads up to a final shot that will haunt you forever. It's a film that the human race could really learn from today. After all, at the time of this writing, this year of 2014 will mark the 100th anniversary of the start of the Great War and it just so happens that at the same time the United States is witnessing the chaos and bloodshed being perpetrated in the country of Iraq, a country where we spent ten years fighting in and sacrificing some 5,000 of our soldiers, only so we could see everything crash and burn in the end! I guess we haven't come very far, have we folks? With all that said, I can't say "Gallipoli" is an easy film to watch but it is one that should be watched, if only to make sure that we never lose sight of the fact that is almost always the innocent who suffer the most in wars and therefore should only commit to such events when there is no other option. So watch and learn the lessons of "Gallipoli" for the sake of future generations. Also starring Bill Kerr, Robert Grubb, Heath Harris, and many more.