Backbencher

This brilliant, powerhouse drama starts off with three soldiers who moved up to court martial status at the end of the Boer War. The first scene starts out in the court room where these three court martials are being tried for murder on a Boer soldier. These court martials killed a Boer soldier due to the Boer soldiers killing one of their fellow commanders. The three court martials are defended by Major Thomas, which is a small town solicitor that knows nothing about this case. He is only given one day to prepare for this grueling court case. The court brings in previous martials that have also ambushed and killed many Boer soldiers. The movie flashes back and forth, looking at most of the ambushes of the Boer soldiers. These previous court martials were never guilty for their actions, for that matter not even tried. The current court martials end up being guilty of murder. Two of them are sentenced to death. The other martial is sentenced to life in prison. The movie ends with a line of soldiers shooting at the two martials in chairs. This is a very old school way of executing their prisoners.

Being a war type movie, I really enjoyed it. At first, I was a little confused, because it took a little bit of time to jump right into the main scenario, which was the killing and murdering of Boer soldiers. I also liked the flash backs of what the previous court martials were doing. It wasn’t just the previous soldiers that murdered Boer soldiers. The previous martials did as well. These didn’t get tried, which made the current court martials angry and disappointed. I recommend this to all, especially those who like war-like movies.