To End All Wars (2001)

All through this film you are aware of the writer sitting at his Keyboard trying to be profound and deep. The result is a self important wafer of a film. There is no sense of the real suffering these men went through all the actors have healthy white teeth and apart from a few token skinny actors they all look well fed and cared for. The hell of the camp and building the railroad is simply a background for pretentious waffle. There is absolutely no cinematic flair. The narration is cringe-worthy and naive. Try Byan Forbes' harrowing and realistic "King Rat" instead.

A powerful film about pow's in Burma/Thailand, who built The railroad of death during the 2nd World War.It shows many things about us humans, but most importantly it portraits hope, forgiveness, the bible and leaves a big question about what justice is. Very good movie indeed, acting and directing are superbly done and why i didn't see this film before now, blows my mind. This film can teach us a thing or two about being human.I highly recommend this beautiful film, but beware it's not for the faint hearted.Actually it touched me deep inside and made me think, what is life and why can't we live in peace without these agonizing wars!

How did this not get a MASSIVE distribution deal? How did this not get an amazing cinematic release? This Film would have made History. I guess this is just the way the Film World is for new film makers, and new independent film makers. What they don't realize is that even though the mob in Hollywood may have not liked David to much, or that no one took a massive bite into the distribution/cinematic release is that they just missed out on what could have been an amazing, AMAZING thing for the film world. Not only for their wallets but in every other aspect. I would still like to see this Film re-released in the Cinema, and have a big build up. I still think it could pull it off, even all these years later!

For anyone who is interested in learning more about Ernest, please find his book. It was called Miracle On The River Kwaii. It may have been changed to To End All....I knew Ernest and he was helpful to me in my life. The movie doesn't go deeply into some of the torture that was really experienced - the book does so be warned.The character of Dusty is also a bit different in the book. The juxtaposition of his true sense of simplicity, and the other inmates intellectual prowess, anger and rage about their treatment is very interesting. How Ernest could survive - how any of them survived is beyond belief. Perhaps the Japanese sense of "Bushido" and many of the current Islamic beliefs show a parallel hereIt is helpful and hopeful. Ernest was a great man. I have made a web page about him and the film here if you have an interest www.pauladams.org/Stories/ErnestGordon.htm