Gallipoli is a film about running: two young men who race for sport flee their homeland in search of adventure. Archy (Mark Lee) is a promising athlete hell bent on joining the Australian army circa WWI. Frank (Mel Gibson), his competitive best mate, decides to enlist, too, one suspects--one is sure--so that he can keep an eye on Archy.

War looks glamorous in newspapers, particularly to idealistic boys suffering from cabin fever; after reading of Australia's participation in the fighting against German allies, the teenaged Archy bids goodbye to his loving family, including his track-coach uncle, and the sheltered existence they offer for a career in the trenches. He and Frank make a long trek through the outback to the recruiting station at Perth, where they apply for the prestigious light horse brigade. Archy is accepted, but Frank, incapable of so much as mounting a horse, winds up in the infantry. Opposing military duties separate them; they're eventually reunited in Turkey by the conflict at Gallipoli.

By focusing his story on two green soldiers, director Peter Weir casts antiwar sentiments. Watching the realistic slaughter of countless youth in act three is more devastating than what is the Hollywood norm: big stars--men of thirty, forty--tempting fate in combat. Many of Gallipoli's heroes are killed before they've had a chance to shed their baby fat. Weir also shows disdain for the English, because it was they who masterminded the assault on absurdly prepared Turks at Gallipoli, a suicide mission that, to be fair, resulted in the deaths of far more British than Australian troops. Gallipoli is a David Lean epic with fewer romantic pretensions.

The big finish, refreshingly small in scope, is nonetheless obsessively detailed. Virtually every character dies, and dies in vain. There are no love interests. There aren't even villains in the piece, only oppressors. The remarkable vistas, however, as well as David Williamson's irony-tinged screenplay, recall the best of Lean's Lawrence of Arabia or The Bridge on the River Kwai. Our Archy is unfortunately a cipher in the final analysis; the film aggravates this by choosing to follow Frank instead of both when the two part ways. Oddly, this lack of character development does not dwarf the impact of the closing scene which, especially in Archy's Pavlovian reaction to a General's whistle, is downright chilling. (On the other hand, Weir's controversial soundtrack, full of space-age synth beats, does distract--I must agree with the Internet critic who wrote that Gallipoli's score dates an otherwise timeless picture. Still, the futuristic music is charmingly anachronistic rather than offensively so.)

Paramount has remastered Gallipoli for DVD along with Witness as part of a makeshift Peter Weir Collection. The disc is bound to impress the hell out of anyone who screened Gallipoli on television first. For starters, it's letterboxed (and 16x9 enhanced) at a very wide 2.35:1, restoring majesty to cinematographer John Seale's images. Alas, the print is blurry and damaged enough that I highly doubt the film was given a full-blown remaster. Grain is present in very dark scenes as well as in shots of the blue desert skies, but as I wrote in my review of The Alien Legacy, grain seldom bothers me.

Audio has been remixed in 5.1 Dolby Digital, a nice gesture. (A quieter Dolby Surround track is also an option.) The frequent and pronounced left-to-right panning effects in Gallipoli's first half are almost overkill, but the rear channel activity manages to impress by doing same once Frank and company reach the war zone. Attempts at sidewall imaging are not entirely successful, and the low-end is feeble. For a film originally released in mono, I'm not complaining.

The studio has included one significant extra (in addition the theatrical trailer, which you should avoid prior to viewing the finished product), an interview with Peter Weir regarding Gallipoli. The director physically resembles Julian Sands and speaks with absolute authority. I only wish this segment were longer, as his anecdotes enlighten.-Bill Chambers