War Horse (2011)

Young Albert enlists to serve in World War I after his beloved horse is sold to the cavalry. Albert's hopeful journey takes him out of England and to the front lines as the war rages on.

Director:

Steven Spielberg

Writers:

Lee Hall (screenplay), Richard Curtis (screenplay),

Stars:

Jeremy Irvine, Emily Watson, David Thewlis

Nominated for 6 Oscars. Another 8 wins & 43 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Jeremy Irvine	...	Albert Narracott
Peter Mullan	...	Ted Narracott
Emily Watson	...	Rose Narracott
Niels Arestrup	...	Grandfather
David Thewlis	...	Lyons
Tom Hiddleston	...	Capt. Nicholls
Benedict Cumberbatch	...	Maj. Jamie Stewart
Celine Buckens	...	Emilie
Toby Kebbell	...	Geordie Soldier
Patrick Kennedy	...	Lt. Charlie Waverly
Leonard Carow	...	Pvt. Michael Schröder
David Kross	...	Pvt. Günther Schröder
Matt Milne	...	Andrew Easton
Robert Emms	...	David Lyons
Eddie Marsan	...	Sgt. Fry

Storyline

Dartmoor,1914: To his wife's dismay farmer Narracott buys a thoroughbred horse rather than a plough animal, but when his teenaged son Albert trains the horse and calls him Joey, the two becoming inseparable. When his harvest fails, the farmer has to sell Joey to the British cavalry and he is shipped to France where, after a disastrous offensive he is captured by the Germans and changes hands twice more before he is found, caught in the barbed wire in No Man's Land four years later and freed. He is returned behind British lines where Albert, now a private, has been temporarily blinded by gas, but still recognizes his beloved Joey. However, as the Armistice is declared Joey is set to be auctioned off. After all they have been through will Albert and Joey return home together?

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Plot Keywords:

horse | cavalry | british | england | france | 

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Taglines:

Separated by war. Tested by battle. Bound by friendship.

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Genres:

Drama | War

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of war violence

Details

Official Sites:

DreamWorks [us] Official Facebook

Country:

USA

Language:

English German

Release Date:

25 December 2011 (USA)

Also Known As:

Caballo de guerra

Filming Locations:

Stratfield Saye, Hampshire

Box Office

Budget:

$66,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$7,512,000 (USA) (23 December 2011)

Gross:

$79,883,359 (USA) (27 April 2012)

Company Credits

Production Co:

DreamWorks SKG, Reliance Entertainment, Amblin Entertainment

Technical Specs

Runtime:

146 min

Sound Mix:

SDDS Datasat Dolby Digital

Color:

Black and White (archive footage) Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

After this became Steven Spielberg and Michael Kahn's first film together edited digitally, the two swore off digital editing once again in favor of analog flatbed editing, stating that digital editing rushed their creative process too much.

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Goofs

The German Army camp is on an open field in enemy territory without any sentries, with around a dozen machine guns forming a defensive line at least 100 yards away from the camp, with nobody guarding these machine guns and with the camp right in the middle of the firing line of the machine guns.

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Quotes

Maj. Jamie Stewart: Be brave! Be brave!

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Connections

Spoofed in Saturday Night Live: Jimmy Fallon/Michael Bublé (2011)

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Soundtracks

"Blue Bonnets over the Border"
Traditional

User Reviews

Horses fought too.

I was expecting this movie to be just another extravagant sentimental potboiler. Wow, was I surprised. This is a great movie. The title says the movie is about a horse, but it's really about a lot more than that. The horse plays a central role but the humans figure in the story too, in a big way. The cinematography is outstanding; it really conveys the bleak, gory nature of war. The movie alludes to the Battle of the Somme which is one of the costliest battles in history in terms of the sheer number of lives lost. At times the movie does lapse into sentimentality but in general the story proceeds at a fast pace (pun intended). The performances of the horses in this movie are impressive. They are stars in their own right. If the movie accomplishes nothing else, it shows that war is hard on animals too, and like the humans, they are victims too; there was never a horse that wanted to go to war. That any horses survived at all in the war is amazing. Anyway, this movie is well worth watching.