Sharpe's Mission Review
"Sharpe's Mission" starts with a flashback early in Wellington's Peninsula campaign where then Captain Sharpe (Sean Bean) and another officer named Brand (Mark Strong) encounter a French patrol. The French are holding a wounded British lieutenant and torturing him. Sharpe is going to rush the position but Brand goes instead. However, once Brand reaches the French they slip away and he shoots the lieutenant, bringing the body back to the other British troops. Because of his "heroism," as reported by Sharpe, Brand is promoted. The ruse has put a French spy into position in Wellington's army.
When we come to the present Major Sharpe is ordered to go behind French lines with a detachment commanded by Colonel Brand to destroy an ammunitions dump. On the other side the French want Brand to set a trap to capture Major General Ross (James Laurenson) and have another "ruse de guerre" to help with that plan. Meanwhile, Sharpe and Patrick Harper (Daragh O'Malley) are having similar problems with their brides. Jane Sharpe (Abigail Cruttenden), weary of being a military wife, is enjoying the attentions of a poet who has gone to make drawings of the war. Ramona Harper (Diana Perez) is made at her husband, who is paying too much attention to the gypsy girls visiting the camp, and is the target of the unwanted affections of Shellington (Warren Saire), a sergeant who is Brand's right-hand man.
The gypsies also introduce us to one of the more interesting supporting characters in the series. Major Pyecroft (Nigel Betts) is an explosions expert who weathers a leather hood because of a fuse that was cut too short. When Brand and Shellington, wearing their own masks, slaughter a young gypsy girl's parents, he helps her bury them and makes himself her protector. Pyecroft and Ross are old friends, but the "accident" has come between them, and the Major is not happy with being assigned to this particular mission. Brand, hearing that the gypsy girl escaped, is out to silence the one witness who can tie him to the murders. Then there is the mission to capture the French fort and destroy the ammunition before the French troops show up in force, which involves a couple of nice moments when Sharpe convinces the foot to surrender and gives Brand's men a way to end their military careers honorably.
This eleventh film in the Sharpe series has an original screenplay by Charles Wood based on the Bernard Cornwell Sharpe novels (one of two in the series). The fact that this is an original story and not an adaptation undoubtedly explains why for once in the series the villains enjoy an appropriate comeuppance at the hands of Sharpe and his Chosen Men. Sharpe actually deals with Brand, Harper gets to pay back Shellington, and it is Coporal Harris (Jason Salkey) who fixes the wagon of the poet wooing Jane. The fight between Harper and Shellington is one of the better choreographed fights in the series (with a neat setting) and I especially like the way Sharpe and Harris dispatch their targets. This might not be the way Cornwell would have done it, but for once it is great to just indulge in pointed victories.
Sharpe's Mission Overview
Studio: Bfs Ent & Multimedia Limi Release Date: 03/20/2001 Run time: 100 minutes
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