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33 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great to see the return of Sharpe!, 26 Jun 2006
Sharpes Challenge sees the return of swashbuckling Sharpe, reluctantly pulled out of retirement as a farmer, to go back to India, and rescue his old friend Harper, and save the British Army from a warmongering Rajah while he is at it.
It's great to see that the story, the production values and the acting are all up at the same levels we became accustomed to. Yes, the story significantly bends the timeline set up by author Bernard Cromwell, and bends history in general, but why quibble about this when the story is so well written and acted? This is boys own stuff, with damsels in distress, camaraderie, and beautiful exotic women trying to seduce our hero, with a few big battle scenes overflowing with extras thrown in for good measure. The characters have aged in the story as well as the actors in real life, such that the gap between this and the last episode makes sense, and the actors being a bit older does not detract from the enjoyment of the movie.
It's every bit as good as we have any right to expect!
The movie is presented in 'as seen' format - so we have it in two episodes, which distractingly means that in the middle of the story you get a 'Next time on Sharpe..' and then a 'Previously on Sharpe', which is annoying, but the disc is still indispensable for any Sharpe fan, or fan of quality TV in general. In fact, the story stands by itself, so that even if you have not seen Sharpe before you could enjoy this.
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Beans back (as Sharpe) so watch out India!, 6 July 2007
I love the Bernard Cornwell flagship series following the military career of Richard Sharpe throught he Indian and Peninsular wars. The TV series... while good I can take it or leave it. Sean Bean isn't the Sharpe from the books but he is good in the heroic lead. This one takes him (and us) back to the Indian campaigns but with a slight twist from the novels.
In the novels Sharpe was an ordinary soldier, fairly new in the army and it was set before the Napoleonic wars but under the command of Wellington. In one of the novels he is almost killed in an ambush by a renegade ex British Soldier now working for the enemy. Sharpe survived the ambush and went on to hunt the renegade down. The ambush is here in this as a flashback but now we jump forward to well after the Napoleonic war and Wellington calls Sharpe (now retired) back to India where the renegade is now back to his old tricks again.
This double episode is everything Sharpe has always been, owes a lot to the novels but mixes several into one story, why? Well simply Sean Bean is too old to play the young Sharpe so we have to make it much later in his life. Gung ho action, a bit of love interest (but not much), an agreable bady and lots of explosions with the customary final battle. If you've seen Sharpe you know what to expect, if not, this is a good place to start even though its the last one (so far) to be made. I don't know if any more are going to follow but they have just about run out of books (well almost).
A great way to spend a few hours on a rainy afternoon.
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16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Another first-rate, rousing adventure for Richard Sharpe. If he loses in this one, he'll have a nail pounded into his head, 12 Jun 2007
The war's been over for two years. Up-from-the-ranks retired colonel Richard Sharpe (Sean Bean) is, more or less happily, making a living as a farmer. And then he's summoned to the Duke of Wellington's home in London. There, the Duke explains, a crisis is arising in India on the frontier between the British and the Mahratta princes. British agents have disappeared. Reports of armed rebellion have surfaced. The Duke wants Sharpe to find out what is happening and, if possible, put a stop to it. Sharpe responds as any experienced ex-soldier would when called back to the colors...he declines. Then he learns the last agent to go missing was his old comrade, Patrick Harper (Daragh O'Malley). When we next see Sharpe he's making his way through dusty Indian villages towards the encampment of a small British army not far from the fortress of the Rajah of Ferraghur. Happily, he encounters Harper, who had gone undercover in an attempt to gain information. From what we know and have seen, Sharpe's task will be extremely dangerous and fraught with risk. He will meet an enemy worthy of him, an English traitor named William Dodd (Toby Stephens), arrogant, vicious and supremely capable. A deserted lieutenant from the British-led Indian Army, Dodd is now styled a general who is leading the forces of the young Rajah. When Sharpe and Harper pretend to be deserters themselves in order to join the Rajah's army, Sharpe will also encounter the beautiful and deadly Madhuvanthi (Padma Lakshmi), regent and elder sister of the Rajah. The Rajah, the regent and Dodd all approve of the old ways when dealing with traitors, captured soldiers, thieves and other malefactors. They have nails hammered into the skulls of the unfortunate captives.
Don't hit the fast-forward button or you'll regret it. This turns out to be one of Sharpe's best adventures. This also may be Sharpe's most challenging assignment, with the fate of the Empire, as well as the honor and life of a general's daughter, hanging in the balance. At 138 minutes it has plenty of time and a plentiful budget to set up the background and create many scenes with lots of action. There's a big cast of extras. And there's a great battle where hundreds of soldiers scramble to gain entrance to the rajah's fortress through a towering wall.
Sharpe's adventures, based on the novels by Bernard Cornwell, began on television in 1993 with Sharpe's Rifles. The last was Sharpe's Waterloo in 1997. Sean Bean has aged well in the interim. If anything, he looks even tougher. Daragh O'Malley may be a bit heavier but he still looks capable of clearing out a bar on Friday night. From the casts of those old programs we have a brief moment with Hugh Frazier, again playing Wellington. Sharpe also encounters again that pompous, cowardly aristocrat, General Sir Henry Simmerson, still played with lip-smacking relish by Michael Cochrane. Simmerson thinks Sharpe is a jumped-up peasant who needs to be put in his place, and tries hard to do so. I still miss the late Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswell, leering and repellant, who liked to talk into his hat when not trying to shoot Sharpe in the back. He was played with verve by Pete Postlethwaite. His replacement in Sharpe's Challenge, played by Peter-Hugo Daly, is Sergeant Shadrach Bickerstaff. Bickerstaff is a mouth breather, a leering bully, a resentful opportunist, a man who probably last saw a bar of soap when he last brushed his rotting teeth.
The prize for villainy, however, goes to Toby Stephens as Dodd. He's not so much unhinged as he is utterly logical when it comes to protecting his self-interest and justifying his resentments. Plus, of course, killing makes him feel good. He's a man to avoid, especially if he says he likes you. Stephens is a first-rate actor. He can do villains so well I hope he doesn't do too many more of them. He'll find himself typecast. For a much more subtle and complex take on villainy, watch him as Kim Philby in Cambridge Spies.
Sharpe's Challenge is a first-rate rouser. It's a welcome addition to the Sharpe set.
"Though kings and tyrants come and go
A soldier's life is all I know
I'll live to fight another day
Over the hills and far away."
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