Search - Sharpe's Gold on DVD

Yes, there are some serious problems with this Sharpe story

Lawrance M. Bernabo | The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota | 09/03/2004

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I have not (yet) read Bernard Cornwell's series of novels about maverick officer Richard Sharpe serving in the Duke of Wellington's army during the Napoleonic War, so I cannot speak to how well the television movie version of "Sharpe's Gold" follows the original novel. Given what I see here the answer is not very well. But even in my ignorance I had some major problems with this sixth adventure in the Sharpe series.

The setting remains Spain in the summer of 1813 as Wellington's army is driving the French out of Spain. At the beginning of "Sharpe's Gold" the French wagon trains are coming under relentless attack by the British as they try to reach the protection of Marshal Soult. Sharpe (Sean Bean) and his Chosen Men are part of the harassing forces and after the fight he has harsh words for Sergeant Rood (Peter Hugo-Daly), who men hid until the shooting was done and then started looting. Rood is stripped of his rank and branded a deserter, but we know this is not the last we will see of him. We have seen the problems that Wellington's army has had with deserters in Spain, and that continues to be the case here.

Then Sharpe encounters the arrogant young Lieutenant Ayers (Ian Shaw), one of the agents of the Provost, responsible for bringing back deserters and hanging looters. One of Sharpe's Chosen Men grabs a scrawny chicken in a deserted Spanish town and when Ayers drags the man off to be hanged, Sharpe forces the lieutenant to return his man at gunpoint. Up to know "gentlemen" officers superior to Sharpe in rank have plagued him. But now an inferior officer exhibits the same sort of disdain and pushes things to great lengths. My problem is that after that point I find it hard to believe that Sharpe and his men would find anything this twerp does to be amusing. I keep expecting somebody to put a bullet in the back of the head of one of these buffoons and Ayers was another prime target who such a fate, but Cornwell never likes to take the expected path with Sharpe and his villains.

The idea of exchanging guns for deserters is a solid enough idea for Sharpe's next mission. They do not all have to be capturing fortresses and the like. But the mission takes a back seat to the fact that two women, Wellington's cousin, Bess Nugent (Rosaleen Linehan) and her daughter, Ellie (Joyne Ashbourne) have made their way from Ireland to Spain to find Will Nugent (Peter Eyre), a map-maker who is apparently also a scholar who is clearly out of his depth in the army. Wellington (Hugh Fraser) tries to explain that the invasion of France is slightly more important than looking for one lost man, but the women will not take no for an answer. After all, Ellie is almost as good of a shot as Sharpe and what is the worst thing that can happen to two women out by themselves in the middle of a war torn land where there are partisans between the British and French armies? Exactly.

Then we get to the really stupid part of the story, which are these Spanish guerillas who are convinced that they are the descendants of the Aztecs and like to rip the hearts out of living prisoners. It seems Will Nugent was studying them as well and even Lieutenant Ayers knows something about the quaint customs of the Aztecs. Apparently, even in the early 19th century it could still be a small world after all. This is one of those times when you could clearly have addition by subtraction by just getting rid of this Aztec nonsense. There is plenty of horror in war without transplanting human sacrifice from the New World to the Iberian Peninsula. I kept thinking of the old Hammer film "The Lost Continent," where a modern steam liner lost in the Sargossa Sea unexpectedly finds the Spanish Inquisition, because "Sharpe's Gold" comes across as equally improbable in that regard.

The emotional depth of this particular adventure rings hollow for the most point. For example, there is a point where Ellie is forced to shoot not a rabbit or a target but a living man. Killing a young French soldier upsets her greatly since a woman proves herself by giving life and not taking it away. But she is risking the lives of lots of young British soldiers by forcing them to chase her and her mother over the hills and far away to find her father. Her stupid arrogance in this regard makes it difficult to express much sympathy for her when bad things happen to her and her family, which is not what you want when telling this sort of a story. You are supposed to want to see Sharpe rescue her and not become indifferent to her fate.

What emotional power exists in "Sharpe's Gold" comes from Rifleman Daniel Hagman (John Tams), the singer amongst the Chosen Men, who makes particularly effective use of a song about the Provost's men hanging a soldier to get under the skin of Lieutenant Ayers. Usually it is Sergeant Harper that gets the main supporting role, but Hagman is at least his equal this time around, although it would have been nice to have seen the Chosen Men's best shot go up against the lovely lady in the shooting contest.
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