For Queen & Country

(1989) For Queen and Country POLITICAL THRILLER

Co-written and directed by Martin Stellman with Denzel Washington as Reuben James, an African British man who has retired from serving his country, once back home he begins to witness more mistreatment to his fellow African British mates both by the law and by government. That the British law is indeed racist.

Denzil Washington was convincing as a Englishman attempting to adjust, except that much of his fellow mates are continued to be mistreated. It's more of a pessimistic outlook in which I did not care too much for the ending. It's like, where is the optimism!

This film is a harsh reality of life after the army. The British Paras are an elite fighting force, but they are there to kill the enemy. You don't really have a trade when you leave, except how to jump out of planes & kill. However, the British Army today has an excellent support sytem, unlike the mid 1980s when this film was set. This is highlighted in the movie as we see Reuben returning after leaving the Paras, during which he did a tour in Northern Ireland and fought in the 1982 Falklands war. We see him struggling to get any meaningful employment until he links up with a criminal friend. His mate Fish, who was wounded in the Falklands, is living on disability allowance, and is suffering too, being in a wheelchair. It is a sad, gritty look at life at the lower end of the scale in a run-down urban council estate in London. Having served his country with pride as a British paratrooper, he is left with nothing except the prospect of drifting into crime.

I never intended to see the movie - in fact I'd never heard of it - but accidentally I turned on the TV just as it was beginning, I saw Denzel Washington (come on, guys, he IS gorgeous) and decided to see what it's going to be about. And jeez, I was stunned. It was Britain showed from a totally different angle that I used to know (as a tourist and an exchange student). At moments, I must admit, the picture that emerged was that negative that I started suspecting it must be very much one-sided.

But coming back to the story: a veteran (Northern Ireland and the Falklands) comes back to the part of London where he used to live only to find the world from which he tried to escape unchanged - probably even worse. His former buddies, with whom he used to get into troubles, continue to do so, only with much graver consequences. He tries to keep away from them, find a decent job, find a girlfriend, but it turns out that no one in this country needs a black war veteran. The only thing he has is his "honour and pride" from having served "his" country.

What is amazing for me in this movie was probably the inevitability of his fate. Returning home means for him returning to people who got stuck in this ghetto, since it is a kind of a ghetto, deprived of any future, of any hope for better future. Drug dealers, thieves, war veterans, their women and children - they are all thrown into the same category of common criminals, the so-called social margin, from whom it's best to keep away. The funny thing - sending the police to fight them does not really solve the problem, quite the contrary, leads to an open war. Yet this is how the problem is being dealt with in most countries.

All in all, a very good movie, one worth seeing not only because of Denzel Washington :))), but also because of the social problems mentioned... And really, is Britain such a racist country?

Just one final remark - I wonder what makes D. Washington such a good pick for roles of soldiers (and ex-soldiers). Huh?

The first time I saw this film was back in the early Nineties, and I hadn't really heard of Denzel Washington either, therefore I presumed I was watching a low budget film about a Falklands Veteran returning to life in Civvy Street.

What I actually got was an eye opener about Life within Her Majesty's Armed Forces versus Life on the outside. Reuben, having been discharged from 2 Para, returns to London after a tour of duty in Northern Ireland and the Falklands, where he was decorated as a war Hero. However, given his vocation to his country, he finds interviews for jobs surprisingly difficult to arrange, even though they were sorted out by his careers officers in the army. Within time, he realises his illustrious army record holds no sway in everyday life.

This film makes you realise how easy it is to fall into the criminal side of life as Reuben becomes a body guard to a drug dealer. The ending is as grim as his life has become, therefore don't expect a smart, streetwise, cocky character to race through the film avoiding trouble. This is a Gritty urban Drama. I felt that as you watch Reuben's hopes for the future fade away, there truly is no justice for the little man.

Washington's British accent is impeccable, you would believe he was born, and lived his life in Milwall or Bermondsey. I read an interview that he learnt the native accent by getting drunk for a fortnight in London.

I really didn't know what to expect when some friends and I hired this DVD. Denzel Washington plays Rueben James, a retired English Paratrooper, returning home to the housing estate he grew up in as a child. Here he finds that not much has changed since he left about 10 years beforehand.

Many of Rueben's friends are still involved in 'less than legal' occupations, and the poverty and wretchedness of the estate seems even worse than when he lived there before. He needs to decide just where he fits in back home, and what direction his life will take. Despite trying to make a new life for himself, obstacles from past and present seem to always get in the way.

While I did find this movie slow paced, it captured the dismal feel of this community excellently. It also avoided using simplistic general stereotypes (for example, police are portrayed both in a very positive and very negative light).

I would recommend this movie if you're in the mood for a bit of gritty realism, but don't expect to feel particularly upbeat afterward!