Breaker Morant
Every other year or so, the fiercest sporting rivalry in the world occurs. I speak, of course, about cricket’s Ashes series, which pits Australia and England against each other. A general principle of international test cricket is that it’s hard to win as a visitor. But this is exceptionally true of travelling to Australia and not so true of travelling to England. Thus, in the competition, the Australians have a natural advantage. Given that this rivalry verges on a war, at least on the cricket pitch, as an England cricket fan I view BREAKER MORANT as propaganda piece favouring Australia. It is about a trial of three technically Australian soldiers for war crimes during the Boer (or South African) War of 1899-1902. It is based on a book by one of the defendants entitled Scapegoats of Empire, an attempt to rehabilitate them. With a title that presents its bias for all the world to see, a film based on the book similarly takes an Australian side, although it is more complicated than that.
The Britain represented in the film is largely that of the officer class. We do get a hint of sympathy from the rank-and-file towards the eponymous Morant and his two associates. After all, a lot of Australians came from the rank-and-file of the Mother Country. But these men are very much marginal characters in the film, just as much as they were in British society at the time. There is almost no sympathy at all towards British officers except for the prosecutor, Major Bolton (Rod Mullinar). (Mullinar gets one of the best lines in the film when he rightly observes of Germans ‘They lack our altruism, sir’. Lord Kitchener, played by Alan Cassell, doesn’t know whether it’s a joke or meant in earnest, and merely replies ‘Quite’.) There are one or two asides during the trial which do nothing to advance the plot but present an opportunity to show Lieutenant-Colonel Denny (Charles Tingwell) as a formal sort in contrast to the free-spirited Lieutenant Peter Handcock (Bryan Brown). It doesn’t really add anything to the purpose of the story beyond giving the audience another stick with which to beat the British officer class. Meanwhile, one is wondering what Mrs Handcock (Elspeth Radford) might have thought about it.
The Australians are, in the nature of that classless society, without any distinction between ‘gentlemen’ (usually the batsmen) and ‘players’ (the hard-working bowlers, labouring in the heat). Except funnily enough all those on trial are officers. Lieutenant Harry ‘Breaker’ Morant (Edward Woodward, carrying off the role superbly) is an Englishman who earned the respect he receives for his facility with horses and general ability as an officer. He also is an unpretentious literary man who can carry a tune. Handcock and Lieutenant George Witton (Lewis Fitz-Gerald) appear to be native-born Australians, but at least for Witton that means being essentially an ‘overseas Briton’. (It is the British who decline to accept this qualification, referring instead to ‘colonials’, another poke at them.) Their defence lawyer, Major Thomas (Jack Thompson), is a humble ‘country solicitor’. The class dynamic of the film is very clear, with on one hand the calculated imperialism of Britons disregarding the humanity of the defendants and on the other a Band of Mates being given to understand that they are allowed to do what they need, but taking the fall when the elite needs someone to blame.
Though director Bruce Beresford carefully delineates his ‘good guys’ and his ‘bad guys’, the true greatness of the film begins when he enfolds both into the actual business of fighting a war. Whether you’re Field Marshal Lord Kitchener or Lieutenant Morant, you are complicit in a machinery that exists to fight and win. When Morant speaks in court to defend Rule .303, they all know he’s fundamentally right when you’re being shot at. War, like commerce, is no place for legal niceties. Winning is all that matters. Under these circumstances, we reach the theme of Thucydides’ Melian Dialogue: ‘The strong do what they can; the weak suffer what they must.’ The same government policy that brought Morant and Handcock and Witton and Kitchener and the rest to South Africa could not officially tolerate the execution of prisoners of war if treating them properly hampered the rapid achievement of defeating the enemy still in arms. But it could allow it with a nod an a wink in the full knowledge that consequences would follow as soon as it became inconvenient.
Beresford knows that by making the men of the Bushveldt Carbineers appealingly ordinary in contrast to the commanders, we will sympathise with them. Even as we see in flashbacks the crimes they committed, we will recognise the invidious position that they have been put in. How on Earth can we expect men who see their comrades fall round them, often in the dubious circumstances of an ambush, to treat the captured enemy with the dispassionate detachment of the law literally moments after these new prisoners had been trying to kill them? How often do we as workers circumvent proper procedure to get the job done because it keeps the manager happy?
Beresford’s film is a powerful appeal for peace and solidarity, because war will make criminals of us all. Graham Greene described it as ‘a magnificent film’, and I see no reason to quarrel with that. But it’s still on the wrong side where the cricket is concerned.
© 2026 Paul Brewer
The Britain represented in the film is largely that of the officer class. We do get a hint of sympathy from the rank-and-file towards the eponymous Morant and his two associates. After all, a lot of Australians came from the rank-and-file of the Mother Country. But these men are very much marginal characters in the film, just as much as they were in British society at the time. There is almost no sympathy at all towards British officers except for the prosecutor, Major Bolton (Rod Mullinar). (Mullinar gets one of the best lines in the film when he rightly observes of Germans ‘They lack our altruism, sir’. Lord Kitchener, played by Alan Cassell, doesn’t know whether it’s a joke or meant in earnest, and merely replies ‘Quite’.) There are one or two asides during the trial which do nothing to advance the plot but present an opportunity to show Lieutenant-Colonel Denny (Charles Tingwell) as a formal sort in contrast to the free-spirited Lieutenant Peter Handcock (Bryan Brown). It doesn’t really add anything to the purpose of the story beyond giving the audience another stick with which to beat the British officer class. Meanwhile, one is wondering what Mrs Handcock (Elspeth Radford) might have thought about it.
The Australians are, in the nature of that classless society, without any distinction between ‘gentlemen’ (usually the batsmen) and ‘players’ (the hard-working bowlers, labouring in the heat). Except funnily enough all those on trial are officers. Lieutenant Harry ‘Breaker’ Morant (Edward Woodward, carrying off the role superbly) is an Englishman who earned the respect he receives for his facility with horses and general ability as an officer. He also is an unpretentious literary man who can carry a tune. Handcock and Lieutenant George Witton (Lewis Fitz-Gerald) appear to be native-born Australians, but at least for Witton that means being essentially an ‘overseas Briton’. (It is the British who decline to accept this qualification, referring instead to ‘colonials’, another poke at them.) Their defence lawyer, Major Thomas (Jack Thompson), is a humble ‘country solicitor’. The class dynamic of the film is very clear, with on one hand the calculated imperialism of Britons disregarding the humanity of the defendants and on the other a Band of Mates being given to understand that they are allowed to do what they need, but taking the fall when the elite needs someone to blame.
Though director Bruce Beresford carefully delineates his ‘good guys’ and his ‘bad guys’, the true greatness of the film begins when he enfolds both into the actual business of fighting a war. Whether you’re Field Marshal Lord Kitchener or Lieutenant Morant, you are complicit in a machinery that exists to fight and win. When Morant speaks in court to defend Rule .303, they all know he’s fundamentally right when you’re being shot at. War, like commerce, is no place for legal niceties. Winning is all that matters. Under these circumstances, we reach the theme of Thucydides’ Melian Dialogue: ‘The strong do what they can; the weak suffer what they must.’ The same government policy that brought Morant and Handcock and Witton and Kitchener and the rest to South Africa could not officially tolerate the execution of prisoners of war if treating them properly hampered the rapid achievement of defeating the enemy still in arms. But it could allow it with a nod an a wink in the full knowledge that consequences would follow as soon as it became inconvenient.
Beresford knows that by making the men of the Bushveldt Carbineers appealingly ordinary in contrast to the commanders, we will sympathise with them. Even as we see in flashbacks the crimes they committed, we will recognise the invidious position that they have been put in. How on Earth can we expect men who see their comrades fall round them, often in the dubious circumstances of an ambush, to treat the captured enemy with the dispassionate detachment of the law literally moments after these new prisoners had been trying to kill them? How often do we as workers circumvent proper procedure to get the job done because it keeps the manager happy?
Beresford’s film is a powerful appeal for peace and solidarity, because war will make criminals of us all. Graham Greene described it as ‘a magnificent film’, and I see no reason to quarrel with that. But it’s still on the wrong side where the cricket is concerned.
© 2026 Paul Brewer
Mini Review: Graham Greene described it as ‘a magnificent film’, and I see no reason to quarrel with that. But it’s on the wrong side where the cricket is concerned.
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