Sharpe's Justice (2006)

Sharpe is back in England with his reputation fully restored. He is ordered to the north where he is to command the local militia in a troubled town. It is here that Sharpe faces an agonizing decision - whether to side with the town's corrupt gentry or to support his own kind, the rough and tough of the world who are abused by their superiors.

Sharpe Justice

This product meets all requirements, I have viewed it, disk is average. Price is average, handling and shipping fees are average. September 13, 2008

Sharpes' Justice - a flop

Sharpe's Justice is an oddity in that it is set in England in 1814, with the backdrop of the Industrial Revolution and social unrest.

It doesn't work well, though.

The Peterloo massacre, in which yeomanry killed several people and injured many more in Manchester in 1819 is relocated here in Keighley Town Square in 1814.

Sharpe gets the blame, but in reality, the Prince Regent, Home Secretary and others appplauded this action as a necessary one against revolutionaries.

The brother of Sharpe is introduced, briefly, and coincidence throws Rossendale and Jane back into Sharpe's remit. Rossendale is said to have been a friend of Sharpe, and though he briefly appeared in Sharpe's Regiment, I think, he was hardly on close terms with our hero.

The conclusion is rather fudged. Sharpe changes sides, but when we discover the villains are who they are, he's welcomed back by a decent specimen of the gentry.

Finally, Sharpe would not have been allowed to flit back to France at the end of the story because he would have been needed for trials, inquests and enquiries into the numerous unlawful deaths which occur n this story.

This story can easily be missed as the viewer finishes Sharpe's Justice and can go straight to Waterloo without missing anything of importance. When first screened, I missed this on without loss. January 30, 2008

Dreadful and substandard--A disappointment

As an insight into the exploited class conflict of the pre-Industrial Revolution and hypocrisy of the Crown, this is useful; as a DVD and as a Sharpe "adventure", this is best rented or better yet obtained without charge from a public library. It is overly long, often a bore and trite and on the whole a disappointing waste of otherwise superb talent. August 28, 2006

Great film with anoying evil characters

The film is worthy to be included with the other Sharpe's collections. What I noticed the most about this film and the ones after this one in the series are that the bad guys are starting to be anoying characters. What I mean is that they tend to be wimps, cowards, and scheming all the time. It hardly matches that of the bad guys in the other films where they fight for the wrong side but atleast they contain some sort of solder's honor.
I would consider this film the epiloge of the whole colection. The Waterloo episode spikes up in action again but this one feels more like an ending to all of the episodes. The plot is a bit old fashioned where he goes and looks for his mom's indentity and ends up being involved in a conflict between landowners and peasants.
The customes in all of these series are always a plus and seems to come straight from the theaters themselves. The details are rich as well as the plot. This episode wasn't my most favorite and it isn't my least favorite but it falls nicely in between and lenghtens your love for the Sharpe series.
I recomend this one as long as you've seen the other ones first. May 17, 2005

What did Sharpe do during the break in the Napoleon Wars?

If there is one thing that I have learned from the first dozen adventures of Major Richard Sharpe (Sean Bean), maverick British officer from the Napoleonic Wars, it is that the only time our hero takes direct and final action against an enemy is when the script is not based on one of Bernard Cornwell's novels, which is the case with "Sharpe's Justice." In the previous outing, "Sharpe's Revenge," his target was the French spymaster Major Ducos, who had framed Sharpe for stealing Napoleon's treasure. But as Sergeant Harper (Daragh O'Malley) pointed out, Ducos was only the first half of Sharpe's revenge. Waiting fearfully in their bed back in England are Sharpe's errant wife, Jane (Abigail Cruttenden), and her lover, the impoverished Lord Rossendale (Alexis Denisof). However, even though Napoleon has been defeated and is mulling his fate on the island of Elba, Sharpe is still a serving office in His Majesty's Army and is posted to Yorkshire where the Mill workers are about to revolt.

This thirteenth of the fourteen Sharpe films is a strange one, and not just because Sharpe is in England and away from Wellington and the War. While it does touch on the wretched conditions that Hagman (John Tams) and the other soldiers of Wellington's army were confronted with when they returned home, it has a lot of soap opera elements. It turns out that Sharpe is from Yorkshire and the orphanage where he was raised is still in operation and Sally Bunting (Karen Meagher) who took care of him when he was a wee lad has some rather important news to relate about Sharpe's family. Then there is Truman (Philip Glenister), who was Sharpe's friend when they were in the orphanage, if you count fighting all the time as friendship.

Of course it would not be a Sharpe story if there was not some friction between our hero and some idiot officer, and this time around it is young Wickham (Douglas Henshall), who fancies himself quite a swordsman, a skill he developed safe in England. We all know that there is a difference between dueling in front of lords and ladies versus swordplay to kill or be killed, but Wickham will have to learn that on his own. There is intrigue going on with the mills to complicate everything, especially after the troops Sharpe commands disobey his orders and start slaughtering mill workers, and it is up to Sharpe, Harper and Hagman to help set things to rights.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of "Sharpe's Justice" is that the script by Patrick Harbinson (with additional material by John Tams) stripes away the last thoughts of affection we might have towards Jane Sharpe. It was not bad enough that she was persuaded to abandon her husband on the Continent, clean out his bank account, and be seduced by a penniless nobleman, this time around she decides to add insult to injury by being repentant about her actions. Ironically, Rossendale thinks more highly of Sharpe than does his own wife, so I think it is clear that the bed she had made is going to be a lonely one for her in the end. But the way she is presented in this penultimate film of the Sharpe series that is far less than she deserves.

There is only the last adventure, "Sharpe's Waterloo" to come in this fine series. It makes sense that the makers of this series would see a need to give more of a sense of the brief peace that existed while Napoleon was exiled on Elba. Next time around Wellington will face Napoleon for the final time and I have no doubt that Sharpe and Rossendale will somehow end up crossing paths on the battlefield. I will be sad to see the series end, but I know there are all those Cornwell novels out there to enjoy.
October 6, 2004

More reviews at Amazon.com ...