David L. Cunningham follows up on his acclaimed
Beyond Paradise with this Bridge Over the River Kwai-like POW drama. Following Japan's surprise invasion of Singapore during the waning days of 1941, a small British battalion headed by Lieutenant Colonel McLean (
James Cosmo), Major Campbell (
Robert Carlyle), Captain Gordon (Ciaran McMenamin), and Lieutenant Tom Ridgen (
Kiefer Sutherland) are captured and imprisoned in a camp deep in the Burmese jungle. Soon after arriving, Major Campbell starts to an uprising. Worn down by an exhausting march through the woods, brutal daily beatings, and a lack of food, the troops are in no mood for a coup and the scheme collapses. Captain Gordon copes with the camp's extreme conditions in a polar opposite manner -- by forgiving his captors and seeking spiritual salvation. Soon a split occurs within the camp between those who follow Campbell's tireless efforts for physical freedom and those who follow Gordon's more transcendent pursues. This film was screened at the 2001 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide