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

I was unaware of this film adaptation of Waugh's trilogy until today's showing on British freeview TV, and missing the first half hour, also missed the chance to record it to DVD. Drat. Until I saw it. Very pretty production by Channel 4 TV and Talkback, made some 8 years back, before Daniel Craig became a superstar.I've read and reread a lot of Waugh but believed Sword of Honour to be an inexplicably stolid, inaccessibly unreadable work, so big, so long, so dull. Brideshead was the beginning of the end, the trilogy was the end writ large.Until I found the BBC radio adaptation from 1974, over 11 hours rather than this film's 4. After a few hours I began to see the early Waugh wrapped inside the less obviously satirical wrappings, his humour and gravity. The genius, in short.They don't make them like Waugh any more, nor do they make the people; the 1974 recording was made in time to catch many authentic sounding voices from the era, and some very fine acting. A gem which I recommend to any Waugh fans.This film seems to be, probably, a rather adroit shot at a script which condenses a huge tome to a few hours, but the vowels are comprehensive school, Craig is hopelessly wrong, and there are but a few flashes of sharp observation and very little wit. But the audio version is available on the internet, and of course the pictures are better.

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.

Like almost all of Waugh's novels, this is a lightly fictionalised version of incidents in his own life. Apart from the early one's, they were intended to advocate the austere and serious form of Catholicism that Waugh had converted to. But what makes him such a compelling storyteller is that he mixed comedy (light as well as grotesque) with the serious points, so that one never knows quite how a story will turn out. Waugh's life alternated between melancholy and farce - and that is how his fiction comes across as well. Maybe that's why when I read his novels and see the adaptations, I find myself nodding in agreement. Yes, that is what life is like ! I thought this version of Sword of Honour very good, but oddly structured. It started as three novels, so I would have thought it would make most sense as three segments, broadcast weekly. Instead we have two long "movies", which to the casual viewers must seem a bit jumbled.There are some superb acting performances here, though I found Daniel Craig as the hero a bit blank. Perhaps that is because, like Charles Ryder in Brideshead, the story is not really about him but about the people he meets and remembers in extraordinary circumstances. Previous reviewers have said that his wife Virginia comes across as very silly and unlikeable, but I disagree. I thought the actress (Megan Dodds - the end credits were so small that I couldn't read her name so I had to look on this site !) gave a very subtle and sophisticated performance. Really she is a woman who has never needed to think seriously about anything before, but the war experience forces her to. She becomes a Catholic - I think for Waugh this is one of the most important parts of the story.This is a worthy successor to the celebrated TV version of Brideshead Revisited, though I wanted it to go on longer ! Unlike Brideshead (which was stretched out to an absurd 13 hours), this trilogy of stories could have gone on much longer, and I still would have been absorbed.