“The fact of the matter is that war changes men’s natures. The barbarities of war are seldom committed by abnormal men. The tragedy of war is that these horrors are committed by normal men in abnormal situations.”
If Australian war movies have a common theme or connective thread, it’s that we always seem to be at the mercy of some more powerful country, throwing us head first into a war and giving us the worst jobs. The Australian soldiers in The Odd Angry Shot seem mainly oblivious to why they’re fighting in Vietnam or the not so justified reasons for the war in the first place. Gallipoli is the Australia’s most famous war story, as the Brits made our soldiers cannon fodder for the Turks in WWI. And now, I’ve found another one to add to the list of movies where Aussies get fucked over during a war, Breaker Morant.
In South Africa at the turn of the 20th century in South Africa, the Beor war is being fought between the British and the Dutch colonialists. As was British tradition at the time, they sent in Aussies to do their dirty work. With Dutch farmers taking up arms and practicing a kind of guerilla warfare, the poms had to develop new ways to fight an enemy that wasn’t always there in plain sight, wearing a bright uniform to identify themselves as the enemy. Which is where the Bushvelt Carbineers come in. The first group of soldiers ever referred to as commandos, they fight behind enemy lines and resort to any measure to get the job done. (more…)
Bored and Dangerous 