The Bofors Gun (1968) User Reviews

The pain of self-realisation

[oOgiandujaOo_and_Eddy_Merckx · 8/10 · 30 June 2014]

The Bofors Gun is an adaptation of a stage play about a group of British soldiers in a West German army camp guarding an artillery piece (the Bofors Gun). It draws in no small part from the National Service experiences of John McGrath, who wrote the play and adapted it for the screen. There is some comment relating to futility which is very much of its time, i.e. guarding an artillery piece against an enemy that has nuclear weapons, however there are absolutely timeless themes. Essentially David Warner's Bombardier Terry is forced into confronting elements of his own personal psychological make-up during a night where he supervises guard duty. It looks very much like he is a kind, cultured, sensitive and thoughtful individual, but events compel him to recognise that he might in fact be adopting a persona that allows for his survival, and that he's just another player in the game, a coward, a snob and a selfish one, of whom it cannot even be said in remediation that he plays with flair or is aware of his own motivations. By counterpoint Nicol Williamson's O'Rourke is an earthy violent man who knows himself all too well, and has run out of patience with the British Army, its attendant hypocrisies, and life in general. Mix for combustion. What I like about the movie is that it's not clear cut, you can believe as you wish about Terry, is there an essential duality to his mind, is he really just a nice guy who is pushed too far, or is he indeed as pathetic as it gets.

The dialogue is, at times, so out of this world that I overcame my habitual distaste for stagey movies. I've only mentioned the two characters I consider essential to the movie, but in fact there are several other interesting characters, and an eminently credible supporting cast.

Disturbing and suspenseful drama

[spratton · 8/10 · 28 July 2010]

A star cast, considering it was made so long ago. A gruelling night watching the impossible struggle of a newly-promoted lance bombardier supervising an unhappy guard hut in a gun park in a British-occupation base in Germany, on a bitter winter night. Does it sound like fun to you? I am put in mind of Kipling's poem about the young recruit in a similar classic situation: (roughly:) "And now he's half of nothing, and all a private yet, And his room they ups and rags him to see what they will get. They rags him low and cunning, each dirty trick they can. But he learns to sweat his temper and he learns to sweat his man."

Brilliant portrayals of the characters and an unflinching view of what Army life is like, marooned in camp and beset by rules. You'll need a stiff drink after this one!

A brilliant performance by Nicol Williamson

[martin-dumont · 4 March 2003]

This is definitely one of my favourite films of all time, I own a poor quality copy on VHS taken from the TV, and have lost count of the number of times I've watched it.

The film overall is not exceptional, the story concerns the events that take place during one evening whilst a squad of men guard a gun park on a military base. The story was originally a play by John McGrath and this shows in the films very wordy script and and static locations. Not all films from plays work well on screen but some can be very powerful (12 Angry Men and Streamers to name but two) and this is case here.

The tensions between the main characters, Lance Corporal Terry Evans (David Warner) and Gunner O'Rourke ( Nicol Williamson) are brilliantly worked through in the script and the performances from the two main actors are masterly. At every step David Warner's character misreads and misjudges his reponses to the malevolent force of nature as portayed by Nicol Williamson.

To me this is the best thing about this film. Williamson's performance is stunning, his portrayal as a man at the end of his tether, with nothing left to lose, who seems to have come through some sort of existentialist crisis to arrive at a point where death is the only option left to him, is one of the best screen performances ever.

He really makes you believe that this man is truely desperate and dangerous, something that is very hard to pull off on screen. Witness the long line of psycho bads guys that fill action movies these days. How many of these are really convincing?

Track this movie down and watch a truely remarkable performance from a great actor.

Powerful believable characters

[lesvial · 10/10 · 24 October 2006]

This well made British film brilliantly captures the claustrophobic nature of seven men sharing a small guardroom on the edge of a Royal Artillery gun park in 1950's BAOR (British Army of the Rhine). The guards' tour of duty from 18.00hrs to 06.00hrs is to protect a number of obsolete Bofors anti-aircraft guns hence the films title. The guard comprises a number of young National Servicemen from all over the UK who are at varying stages of their two-year stint. The exception is Gunner O'Rourke (Nicol Williamson) a regular soldier who has seen active service in Korea. O'Rourke is a belligerent Catholic with some sort of death wish not to see past his thirtieth birthday which coincidentally is tonight. The guard commander - Lance Bombardier Evans (David Warner) has a good reason for not wanting his last guard duty to go awry as he has recently passed his WOSB (War Office Selection Board) and is due to return to England the following day to begin officer training. John Thaw plays Gunner Featherstone a Cockney drinking buddy of O'Rourke, Ian Holm plays Gunner Flynn an intelligent and articulate Ulsterman, Donald Gee the Northern Gunner Crowley, Barry Jackson plays Gunner Shone from the Midlands and Richard O'Callaghan the slow witted Gunner Rowe from the West Country. The film exploits the fine line between being a NCO and being 'one of the lads'. Unfortunately for Evans, with the maniacal O'Rourke in self-destruct mode there is no right choice only wrong ones. He foolishly allows O'Rourke and Featherstone to go to the NAAFI to collect their weekly cigarette ration but they promptly take advantage of his weak leadership and proceed to get roaring drunk with O'Rourke in turn hacking down the regimental flagpole with an axe, threatening to kill the regiment mascot - a goat - and finally jumping from a first floor barrack window. His eventual return to the guardroom see his comrades try cover up his actions and aftermath as the Orderly Officer and Orderly Sergeant regularly visit the guard to inspect them. Pushed out into a far corner of the gun park, O'Rourke carries out his promise at midnight leaving Evans well and truly in the mire. His future as an officer and leader of men destroyed by his unwillingness or inability to demonstrate the qualities that would be expected of him. A great film that surely must be long overdue for release on DVD.

"I'll slit your protestant throat!"

[loza-1 · 10/10 · 24 May 2005]

A bombardier (artillery equivalent of a corporal) is posted in Germany, but is going back to Britain the following day where he is going to be commissioned as an officer. This is his last night of duty. He is in charge of the guard. Their duty is to guard a virtually obsolete Swedish-built (Bofors) gun. But can the bombardier last the night?

He has one particular gunner under his command: Dan O'Rourke: Southern Irish, Roman Catholic, about to hit the age of thirty at midnight, insubordinate, abrasive and unstable. O'Rourke sweet-talks the mild mannered bombardier into letting him go to the NAAFI to pick up his cigarette ration. Instead, O'Rourke goes to the bar, and is soon as drunk as a boiled owl. Then O'Rourke spazzes out big-time. He shouts insults at everybody - especially at the bombardier and at a Northern Irish gunner ("There speaks the Industrial Protestant.")He collapses. He vomits all over himself, and his mates clean his face up with urine, because the water pipes have frozen. But the bombardier dare not put him up on a charge: he will have to stay in Germany if he does. At midnight, O'Rourke kills himself; and that is the end of the bombardier's plans. As the father figure of a sergeant says when asked if he is going home: "Not for donkeys' years yet."

There is a hell of a cast in this film, which examines the pointlessness of conscripts in the military service, as well as the British class system and the British nation itself. Stalwarts include Peter Vaughan, Ian Holm and John Thaw. And above them all, Scottish actor Nicol Williamson as Dan O'Rourke. What a performance!

Watch paint dry instead

[malcolmgsw · 1/10 · 23 April 2021]

It is rare that I am unable to watch a film till the end bur this was a rare case. I find it difficult to understand how they thought they could make a film out of this.

It is impossible to watch the sheer unrestrained nastiness of the characters.

Williamson who has the lead part effectively ruined his career because of drink.

Reality

[eyesour · 9/10 · 12 March 2013]

At last it's on a DVD. I'm fairly sure I'd only seen this once before just now. That must have been in 1970. That's 43 years ago, and it had stayed with me ever since, though I'd forgotten the exact details. What I vividly remembered was the towering performance of Nicol Williamson, as a soldier teetering on the edge of a lucid, semi-rational insanity.

Isn't it interesting how brilliantly written and brilliantly acted low-budget films are so often far more memorable than most of the overblown mega-busters hyped to the skies. So many economically made masterpieces fit this minimalist category: Reservoir Dogs, The Duellists, Breaker Morant, Hard Times, Blood Simple, High Noon, Man for All Seasons. Those films seem one hundred percent real, not phony. Nothing beats quality; certainly not demented over-expenditure.

One or two of the reviewers in this site don't seem to have the faintest idea of what they'd been watching. The Bofors gun is not near-obsolete --- it's amazingly still in service, one of the finest ever examples of Swedish weaponry design and engineering. Quote from Wiki: "The gun remains in service as of 2013, for instance as main armament in the CV 90, making it both one of the longest-serving artillery pieces of all time as well as most widespread". Naval gun on the Atlantic? He cannot be serious; he must be joking. However, at the time the action takes place it was felt that all weaponry had been made obsolete, by the H-bomb. Not so, of course.

Since I'd joined the British Army of the Rhine as a two year National Serviceman in 1956 I knew precisely what was being shown here. Everything was dead accurate, down to the way we wore our berets, exactly horizontal round our heads, patted down and shaped to the skull, ribbons tucked in out of sight at the back. These are almost always shown wrong and sloppy in other films of the British military of this era, and it's extremely irritating. Also the NAAFI, the way the orders were barked, the swanky marching, commands to slope and order arms, stand at ease, stand easy. I picked up from Michael Lepine's slightly inaccurate booklet, which came with the DVD, that RSM Brittain, the legendary Coldstream Guards drill-master, drilled these actors, and he obviously did an outstanding job. Jack Gold, the director, confesses in an accompanying interview that he managed successfully to evade doing National Service himself.

One of the factors adding to the decline of Britain in the post-war period was the abolition of National Service. This two year period of training for every able-bodied British male was an invaluable formative element in uniting the country to its common benefit and advantage. It provided youths with skills, discipline and positive experience instead of letting them slide into becoming unemployed yobs, thieves, criminal gang members and dope addicts.

But this play isn't about National Service, in spite of what Lepine says. O'Rourke was a Regular. Since he is going to celebrate his 30th birthday in 1954 by committing suicide, he must have joined the army in about 1942, and served in WW2 as well as Korea and no doubt elsewhere. The play seems in fact to be a clinical study in post-traumatic stress disorder, much as that might surprise its author, McGrath. Excellent. Nine stars.

Five Men in a Room.

[rmax304823 · 4/10 · 14 February 2015]

Five British soldiers are posted at a 40 mm. gun battery in Germany in 1954. David Warner is in charge. He's supposed to be sent to officer's candidate school in England the next day. Nicole Williamson is a mad Irishman who seems to hate everybody, himself most of all, and who kills himself on guard duty to foil Warner's transfer.

It wasn't so much boring as it was relentlessly nasty. Warner aside -- he tries to keep calm and reasonable because his promotion depends on it -- the four men are constantly nettling each other and they gang up on Warner because he represent authority. The air is filled with sneers and insults. One man gets punched in his most sensitive parts.

The performances are good, given the thinness of the material, and Williamson is memorable as the manic depressive who can't stop trying to destroy everything around him. But Williamson is always good at playing maniacs. His Sherlock Holmes was a deranged cocaine addict. His MacBeth was a panting nervous wreck. That's about all he has on his instrument.

I found it exhausting and depressing. It's as if the writer, McGrath, had figured out the beginning and the end of his play and then had to fill in the space between. There isn't any wit in the dialog and little suspense.

Williamson falls on his bayonet at the stroke of midnight, his thirtieth birthday, with chimes ringing in the background.

Why?

Excellent performances.

[dndcullens · 15 January 2004]

I really like this movie especially the performance of Nicol Willimson as O'Rourke. It is one of those films that the British were good at but don't make anymore. Not a lot happens, no big action sequences, and a small storyline would not entice many people but it holds the attention well. John Thaw, David Warner and the others all turn in excellent performances but it is Willimson who stands out. Rating 7 out of 10.

You couldn't possibly win a war with fellow countrymen like this.

[mark.waltz · 2/10 · 8 August 2022]

You couldn't possibly win a war with fellow countrymen like this.

Meanspirited war drama with David Warner finding harassment at every turn for being sent back to England for non-commissioned officers training after a stint in Germany. His bunkmates instantly harass him to the point of threatening him with vicious bullying, and while withdrawing into himself, he's trying to think of a humane way to deal with them, with Nicol Williamson being the worst. This is definitely a slam at the British class system as well as the military, and it's extremely unpleasant to watch.

I couldn't find one positive reason to watch this with an open mind because it represents the worst parts of humanity and serves absolutely no positive purpose. It's a two hour view of a very depressing existence with only one or two moments where anyone shows any kind of decency. And these were the type of men the world was counting on to fight for freedom and justice and destroy fascism, when the bulk of the men here represent exactly what the world was fighting against. Great actors try to find their way in a very talky ugly film where nothing comes out of their mouths but vile garbage. If you ever want to see a film where grown men become battleaxes, then this is it.

good stage-to-screen drama, character driven

[CarsonD · 19 March 2002]

I remember that David Warner is a mild-mannered young British officer guarding a naval gun station in the North Atlantic, in peacetime after World War Two. It's a cold, remote, unpleasant duty, and he's desperate to transfer out of there. But the transfer must happen soon, before he's more than halfway through his service time - otherwise, the War Department won't bother retraining him for a new post, and he'll be stuck. He's got a fiance or something he needs to get back to, but he also reports to an unsympathetic superior who doesn't like him and will do anything to delay his paperwork - effectively denying the transfer. So we have a sensitive, educated young upperclassman, the opposite of any kind of warrior, fighting not the enemy but "the system:" in this case, the British military bureaucracy.

He only needs to get through one more night of guard duty without mishap, which should be easy because there is absolutely nothing going on. But he has trouble relating to the men under his command, especially Nicol Williamson, a borderline psychotic from the slums who constantly tests Warner's authority and creates havoc wherever he goes. So now we've got class warfare in a power struggle between the civilized and the savage. Williamson is brilliant as he deserts his post, gets drunk with his buddy Ian Holm (also excellent), vandalizes the base, and just gets crazier and more dangerous as the night unfolds.

Warner has to control this lunatic and somehow correct and conceal the escalating troubles before his superior finds out. There's a lot of suspense as Warner becomes increasingly stressed, racing the clock between inspection rounds. As another reviewer points out, there is also a lot of talk, in the somewhat-Freudian, somewhat-socially conscious theatrical style of the time. But the conflict and rising tension is splendidly executed, like a first-rate stage play brought to the screen, and Williamson's bravura performance is one of the best in his outstanding career. This is a little-known movie that I recommend.

Best line, Williamson, sweating drunk in a moment of insane clarity: "I should not be at large...!"

Alot of talk

[ghoering · 22 February 2002]

John Thaw (Inspector Morse) was in this movie which is why I'm here. He died just recently and I was doing a little research. I saw this movie about 30 years ago so I'm hazy on the details. What I remember is that the movie had very little to do with that particular piece of military hardware. Instead, the actors basically stood around and vented their feelings at each other. This was a popular style of theater back then. We were all going to be honest with each other and say what we felt. While this is OK under certain circumstances; it tends to make for a very dull movie, especially when most of the expressed feelings sound unpleasant and mean spirited. I don't think I'd watch it again unless I was terminally bored.