The story of the American Revolution against the British crown in 1776 was the subject of this 125-minute, $50 million epic that very few people wanted to watch.
Director Hugh Hudson placed his two central characters, Tom Dobb (Al Pacino) – the (supposedly) Scottish trapper – and Daisy McConnahay (Nastassja Kinski) – the young firebrand who abandons a comfortable home to join the rebels – against a constant background of collective action.
Hudson forever loses his principals in the noisy swirl of street protests, field hospitals, society parties and battle scenes.
There seem to be no more than ten shots in the whole film that contain less than three people, and the nearest thing to an intimate scene – an encounter between Tom and Daisy, three years into the war – has background action so busy it must consciously be intended to rob them of their privacy.
The result, sadly, is less a revolutionary fresco than a film that looks as though it has been shot by a second unit director: a series of big, big scenes, meticulously planned, fluently filmed, but lacking in focus – awe-inspiring but also somewhat numbing.
Tom Dobb
Al Pacino
Sergeant Major Peasy
Donald Sutherland
Daisy McConnahay
Nastassja Kinski
Mrs McCannahay
Joan Plowright
Mr McCannahay
Dave King
Sergeant Jones
Steven Berkoff
Corty
John Wells
Liberty woman
Annie Lennox
Ned Dobb
Dexter Fletcher
Young Ned
Sid Owen
Lord Hampton
Richard O’Brien
Lord Darling
Paul Brooke
Merle
Eric Milota
Betsy
Felicity Dean
Amy
Jo Anna Lee
Cuffy
Cheryl Miller
Israel Davis
Harry Ditson
Bella Davis
Rebecca Calder
Abby
Theresa Boden
Ben
Cameron Johann
Ahab
Danny Potts
Sergeant Marley
William Marlowe
Captain Lacy
Stefan Gryff
General Washington
Frank Windsor
Tonti
Skeeter Vaughan
Honehwah
Larry Sellers
Ongwata
Graham Greene
Sergeant Malin
John Patrick
Doctor Sloan
Malcolm Terris
Clowski
Steve Kligerman
Bill
Adrian Rawlins
Captain Cray
Manning Redwood
Carrie
Kate Hardie
Roger Otis
Richard Hicks
Marcel
Tristram Jellinek
Pierre
Lex van Delden
Director
Hugh Hudson
