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
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