I had never heard of the indie movie “To End All Wars” (2001) until I received a DVD screener for it, but a little research revealed that it played a few festivals and had a very limited theatrical release. However, I often like war films, and the DVD box indicates that Robert Carlyle (“Trainspotting”) and Kiefer Sutherland (“24”) star in it, so I gave it a shot. Considered strictly as a movie, I would rate “To End All Wars” as middling, yet it has many admirable qualities, and I don’t regret the two hours I spent watching it.
Despite a title that suggests otherwise, “To End All Wars” is set during the Second World War. It’s a contemplative POW tale about a Scottish unit captured by the Japanese and forced to perform slave labor in constructing the infamous “Railway of Death” between Thailand and Burma. The lead in the film is played by Ciarán McMenamin, an actor unfamiliar to me. His character is based on the real-life Ernest Gordon, author of a memoir that inspired the movie.
What I like best about “To End All Wars” is its earnest attempt to show men struggling to hold onto their dignity and humanity under atrocious conditions. I found the acting and production values in the film to be satisfactory, but the story is a difficult one to tell, and I think the screenwriting and directing weren’t quite up to the challenge. The movie felt very uneven to me: sometimes flat, prosaic, and heavy-handed, yet occasionally achieving emotional and intellectual resonance.
The “To End All Wars” DVD is a two-sided disc with an anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1) version of the movie on one side and a full-screen (1.33:1) version of the other. The MPAA has rated the film R for strong war violence and for some language. Both DVD versions provide a feature-length audio commentary by director David L. Cunningham. There’s also a 30-minute behind-the-scenes documentary.
