Moviola > Films > Master and Commander

Master and Commander  (12A)   138 mins

Veteran director Peter Weir's Napoleonic swashbuckler stars Russell Crowe as "Lucky" Jack Aubrey, Commander of the HMS Surprise, and Paul Bettany as close friend and ship's surgeon Dr. Stephen Maturin.  It is 1805 and Aubrey is ordered to pursue the French ship Acheron, superior in both weapons and armaments, as far as necessary until he sinks her. The Acheron launches a blistering surprise attack on Aubrey and his crew, leaving them all but destroyed. Aubrey wages vengeance on the French Commander and prepares to journey 12,000 miles to defeat him. Made familiar by the immense success of the series of books by Patrick O'Brian, Master and Commander won two Oscars and was nominated for a further eight.

"Master and Commander is grand and glorious, and touching in its attention to its characters. Like the work of David Lean, it achieves the epic without losing sight of the human, and to see it is to be reminded of the way great action movies can rouse and exhilarate us, can affirm life instead of simply dramatizing its destruction"  Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

"Peter Weir has fashioned a crackingly entertaining yarn: perhaps the most purely enjoyable film of the year." Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

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Last modified: 06-Dec-2006

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