Sorry, this movie sucks

Good concept, poorly executed.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

When the BBC want to be daring and be uncompromising and have the nerve to do it they do it very very well.I last saw this in 1988 and remembered aspects of it, it was shown on BBC4 (27092012) I had the pleasure of again viewing this docudrama of Robert Laurence's time in the Falklands campaign and the consequences of the aftermath.It shows in my view how hard it was in the Falklands, as Laurence's says it wasn't all about yomping, there were some hard battles fought, his descriptions of killing made me think about things, Robert is a hard man, he is a soldier and he loves his job, he is uncompromising in his recovery, with pure determination he shows that despite the sniper injury he isn't beaten, in a film with few laughs there is a "humourous" scene on the Uganda when he has his BO since tumbledown, but it shows that despite these men doing the jobs the polictians send them too they were soon forgotten, what do we do with them, what are my next moves now I'm battle injured, it asks the questions that are relevant today as they were in over 30 years ago.... I don't know of any other films that has dealt with the Falklands like this has, the Falklands was wet, cold and was a hard fight, Tumbledown shows this, as Laurence himself says there is some artistic dramatic licence , "he never shouted isn't this fun". For a unique insight in to one mans actual view of his battle on and off the battlefields Tumbledown is a superb narrative and i would recommend it watched for its modern history aspect, and as it was politically the thatcher eras finest hour !!

There is a serious problem with TUMBLEDOWN and that is with the way Charles Wood has structured the script . The story opens with no hook and becomes very irritating as the events cuts back and forth in time with the climatic battle happening not until the very end of the story There are also other problems with the script in what is it actually trying to say to the audience ? That war is bad ? Thanks but I think everyone knew that , and it does lead to a problem for any writer to set an anti war drama ( Though be it a drama based on actual events )against the background of The Falklands conflict . The number of war dead from the conflict was in the region of 1,000 ( 255 British with around 750 Argentine dead ) but only three of the people killed ( All Falkland civilians killed by a shell from a British warship ) can in any way be described as non combatants . Can anyone name a conflict where 0.3 % of the dead were innocent bystanders ? Compared to all the other wars , genocides , democides etc of the 20th Century The Falklands conflict was almost certainly the " cleanest " war of the last century therefor there`s little opportunity to make angst ridden statements of mans inhumanity to man . It`s also hard to make anti war statements when you`re on the winning side . Why do you think the best anti war films from Hollywood like PLATOON feature Vietnam as a back drop or CROSS OF IRON and ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT show conflict through German eyes ? As has already been mentioned Lt Robert Lawrence isn`t a sympathetic character on screen either so it`s very difficult to sympathise with a character who switches from self pity to arrogance back to self pity again , but at least writer Charles Wood hasn`t tried to modify or embellish Lt Lawrence into the boy next door and now that I come to think of it Wood should be congratulated for not making any overt political statements with the script which the more I think about it comes across as being anti war but pro soldier . But I have to stick with my original conviction that the script to TUMBLEDOWN is very flawed down to the confusing and irritating manner the story is told

An outstanding study of one man's personal commitment and sacrifice to winning a meaningless war on a rain sodden rock 8000 miles away from home.Charles Woods storytelling is first class and gives Colin Firth an opportunity to totally convince us that he really is an officer in the Scots Guards.The production, given the BBC's lack of money is superb. Remember too, that this was produce despite political opposition from the very government which ordered the war in the first place and was then too embarrassed to recognise and honor the cripples who returned.

Some background information; in 1982 2nd Bn, the Scots Guards were pulled from public duties (sentry-mounting in London) and sent to the Falkland Islands as part of the Task Force sent to recover it from Argentina. Unprepared as they were, they fought a savage and decisive battle to capture a vital hill, Mount Tumbledown. During the fighting, Lt. Richard Lawrence was very severely wounded.This film alternates sequences from before and after his wounding; the battle, and his long and difficult recovery and convalescence. It has to steer a tricky course around the major pitfalls of british public opinion. There are on one hand, the tabloid-fuelled jingoism of a country involved in a major fight, and on the other hand the subsequent revulsion that such losses were suffered in a squabble for some barren islands several thousand miles from home.The film does highlight the callousness and indifference with which the war's casualties were sometimes treated.The overall story and moral are not new, but their treatment here, with hardly any bad language or earth-shattering battle effects, strikes a more thoughtful note than, say, "Saving PRivate Ryan".