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My Easy Marketplace - War of the Buttons (1994)
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List Price: $19.98
Our Price: $17.64
Your Save: $ 2.34 ( 12% )
Availability:
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Starring: Gregg Fitzgerald, Gerard Kearney, Darragh Naughton, Brendan McNamara, Kevin O'Malley
Directed By: John Roberts
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9786303954295
Format: Closed-captioned
ISBN: 6303954294
Label: Warner Home Video
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Warner Home Video
Release Date: 1998-09-01
Running Time: 94
Studio: Warner Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: 1995-09-29
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Fantastic Movie!!!
Comment: This is such a great movie. I do not understand why it has never made it to DVD. I blame the hippies!!!!!!
Customer Rating: 
Summary: A brutish Irish adaptation of a playful French novel. What does this say?
Comment: Colin Welland may have won an Oscar for his Chariots of Fire (Two-Disc Special Edition), but in his adaptation of the Louis Pergaud novel set in the early 1900's France and later filmed by Yves Robert in 1962, this move to Ireland lacks the playfulness and innocence of the original and makes these kids from two rival camps way more brutal and warmongering with hateful language. As an Irishman, all I can say is "Why do we keep doing this to ourselves?" Sorry, but this film is full of hateful words, destructive and nearly criminal behaviour that makes Irish lads from Carricks and Bally to be nothing more than Montagues and Capulets from Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet and the Sharks and the Jets from West Side Story (Special Edition DVD Collector's Set). This is not a film about the playfulness and innocence of childhood, but rather the mean-spirited, thoughtlessness of unsupervised children who are learning at an early age to be full of vengeance (frankly observed by watching their parents!). The fact that these boys crush a beautiful fox with a large rock while a girl gang member calls them "Pigs" is exactly how I felt about them also. Not recommended for family viewing unless this is what is acceptable to you as a parent. I find gang warfare abhorrent and derive no sense of value from this adaptation. I find none of these boys or girls charming or lovable.
Rachel Portman soundtrack (Emma: Music From The Miramax Motion Picture is extremely typical of her work, but is fitting to the film.
John Robert's direction is dull and lifeless and lacks all of the innocence and cuteness of the Yves Robert French film. Occasional shots of the Irish countryside do nothing to alleviate the underlying violence in this film . This film is so inferior to the original "La Guerre des Boutons" and so removed in French playfulness to Irish hatefulness that I cannot recommend it for any reason other than if your childhood was full of gang warfare and disrespect and you find that alluring and cute.
Customer Rating:
Summary: great movie
Comment: i love this movie and have since i was a kid. i first saw it in a movie rental place and thought the name was kind of funny so i picked it up and i thank myself for that day every time i watch the movie, which i now own. its a story about two villages in ireland who have this kind feud and every day the kids from each village have a 'war' that ends before dinner time. its an enchanting tale of innocence, adventure, and community. i would definitely recommend it to all people of all ages. a timeless movie for all!!
Customer Rating:
Summary: One of my favorites
Comment: I've seen this film six times now and each time is a good as the first time. The story is very whimsical, funny, poignant and perfectly enjoyable. Along with THE SECRET OF ROAN INISH and WAKING NED DEVINE, I think that THE WAR OF THE BUTTONS is tops among Irish films. The young actors who dominate the film are exceptional and genuine, and the film explores the way in which adolescents begin to move into becoming young adults and some of the harsh realities of life. Why Warner Bros. has not released this on DVD is my big question. I just bought the tape and then transfered it to DVD myself. This film is a winner across the board, and everyone I know that has seen it loves it and is affected by it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Unrealistic Fictional French Tale Set in Eire
Comment: This film could have been a five star story had the script-writers done a better job of adapting this French tale to the realites of children in 1960s County Cork, Eire. It's so far-fetched, that only a young American audience would be gullible enough to swallow its fantastic plot. The script-writers did a poor job of allowing the children to be children with the values of children; instead they imposed adult values on them so that it is a film about children by adults. Rather than do a film for children, they did a film for adults about children. Telling is the absence of a single football throughout the film!
In short, it's the fictional confessional tale of the character Marie and her childhood growing up in a tiny village in West Cork called Ballydouse. The plot follows the antics, at times illegal and criminal, of two boys, Fergus and Jerome, from separates sides of the river who eventually end up in reform school - not for something they actually did, but for something they were responsible for causing (although they should have been disciplined long before things got out of hand, and would have in true life). One of those two boys is now her husband and the other is their oldest friend.
In long, the story begins with the boys from the Ballydouse side of the river confronting the boys from the Carrick side on the bridge that connects the two. An argument ensues with profanities unfamiliar to an American audience but very bad to an Irish one, and a Carrick boy nicknamed Gorilla grabs a Bally boy and dangles him upside down from the bridge. At any second the Bally boy may slip from the grasp of his tormentor and fall head first into the river below. While the life of this young lad is being threatened, the post man sits in his car and only timidly advances towards the lot. Fergus comes to the rescue, but not before Jerome (aka Geronimo) calls off the Carrick goons.
Instead of realistically running home and telling their parents how the young Bally boy was nearly murdered, the Bally boys later quietly retaliate by conducting a guerilla mission to vandalize the church in Carrick. The destruction of private property is unsettling, especially against the church and if that really had happened in Cork, their own would of stopped them in their tracks.
During the raid on the church, one of the lads is spotted by a Carrick man. The boy is so stunned with fear when he's seen, that he drops his basket of eggs. The scene is humorous as he is brought inside the man's home so his wife can tend to him, and it turns out to be the home of the Carrick leader Jerome. Jerome's father determines the boy to be in shock and funnels shots of whiskey down his throat - without any gagging, coughing, or screaming from the boy who presposterously sucks them down like a seasoned adult. When they send him home with a basket of eggs from their hen house, he asks "one for the road?" in very adult and unrealistic fashion.
The next day, the Bally boys row out to the middle of the river to spy through binoculars on the efforts of the Carrick priest to repair his sign. They are confronted with sling-shots ("catapults") by the Carrick boys on the other side. "Murphy's Dunes after school", says Fergus.
At Murphy's Dunes, the Ballys bait the Carricks with their youngest lads who taunt the Carricks into pursuing them into a trap, where the older ones capture one Carrick with a net. It turns out to be the same kid who endangered the life of the Bally boy the day before. In a horrible, illegal, and criminal scene, Fergus pulls out a pocket knife. They torture the boy and threaten to castrate him. Instead, they cut off his buttons, shoe laces, and belt. Then send him back. Hence, the war of the buttons.
Back and forth it goes, each side taking their knives to the buttons of the other, until another very bad and unrealistic scene where the Ballys go to battle completely nude against the Carricks. Bare-bottomed boys running around outdoors indecently exposed. Just doesn't happen in County Cork! Idiotic and stupid are the script-writers. In real life, these boys (who never acted before) were actually made to indecently expose themselves for the camera people and directors filming them. These adults should be ashamed of themselves for imposing adult humour on what otherwise would have remained a sterling coming-of-age story.
Things grow worse and worse, each side trying to trump the other until Marie is very nearly killed by an out-of-control downhill tractor. With the destruction of the tractor and threats of lawsuits against each parent of every child that participated in the wars for buttons, each kid got a thrashing from their parent and Fergus and Jerome were sent to reform school.
Why did they do it? "...for the hell of it - what else is there", explained Fergus. With no afterschool sport, not a single football, cricket bat, or rugby ball anywhere in this film, what did the parents of this fictional village expect their kids to do? A silly movie that can be enjoyed by those who can suspend their knowledge of reality.
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Editorial Reviews:
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This is a story of children from two small towns in Ireland who form small armies and battle against each other in a never-ending quest for supremacy. The film investigates the slightly surreal and powerfully emotional world we inhabit as children.
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