Private Peaceful

A less lavish affair than Steven Spielberg's take on Michael Morpurgo's War Horse, this adaptation of another Morpurgo Great War saga avoids any hint of nostalgia in contrasting life in rustic England with war-scarred Flanders. Initially, director Pat O'Connor and screenwriter Simon Reade evoke Thomas Hardy in depicting the everyday experience of the ordinary folk working the Devon estate of colonel Richard Griffiths. But the mood turns more melodramatic when brothers Tommo (George MacKay) and Charlie Peaceful (Jack O'Connell) become rivals for a local beauty (Alexandra Roach) and then feud with a gruff sergeant (John Lynch) on the battlefield. The grime and the grind of the period is expertly re-created, but this potentially harrowing tale of military injustice is undermined by khaki cliché and the mawkish insistence of Rachel Portman's score. Nonetheless, the performances are admirable and the intentions unimpeachable.