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(More customer reviews)This is an interesting chronicle of the ANZACs, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps.
This made-for-Aussie-TV production is aimed squarely at the Australian audience, who still revere the memory of the ANZACs, the troops who suffered horrendous losses at Gallipoli in WWI. The heroism of the ANZACs became legendary. In fact, they fought so bravely and with such determination that the Turkish enemy erected a monument to them.
While it is true that the film (culled from a five-part mini-series), is not riveting entertainment compared to something like "Centennial" or "War and Rememberance", it does outline the feelings, views, and politics of the day faced by the ANZAC forces.
The Australian and New Zealand viewpoints of the Great War are rarely on display, and here we have all of the various sentiments played out before us. The overall feeling (still is tangible today), is that the incompetence and arrogance of British officers, under whom the ANZAC force operated, were directly responsible for the waste of lives in pointless charges against the heavily-entrenched Turkish forces.
The mini-series is positively anti-colonial in regards to the portrayal of the British as uncaring, and more interested in saving British lives than that of the Aussies or New Zealanders.
Paul Hogan will most likely be the only familliar face for American viewers. I would recommend the Mel Gibson film "Gallipoli" for those looking for a familliar cast and a relatively big budget look. That film also has more weight to it, and is more stylized.
While "ANZACs" does come off as a bit like "light drama", or perhaps almost a glorified soap opera, if someone is interested in the topic of WWI, and the Australian and New Zealand participation in particular, the mini-series is worth a viewing. For scholars studying the events in this theater of the war, "ANZACs" is a must see to examine both the attitudes of the day, and at the time the mini-series was made.
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