lord woodburry Recent history has produced several made-for-TV movies which have glorified the southron cause of slavery and secession even more than DW Griffith's film Birth of A Nation. In this film Slaves obey their masters in conformance with Holy Writ (Colossians 3:22) and regard the plantation as home. This is a generous reading of the sands of time. Even as early as the 1950s with a real right wing star John Wayne in HORSE SOLDIERS, Hollywood showed how Black Southerners warmly greeted US Army troops. The answer to the writers of this film comes from Mr Lincoln himself: "Anyone who thinks slavery is a good idea ought to try it out." On the other hand the costuming was excellent and the scenery was well done.

GwydionMW I likes the first and last 20 minutes, when there is dramatic action. But between the two, there was much too much banal personal stuff. None of it done well enough to be interesting. I found myself uninterested in their personal concernI also found it offensive in the way it showed a lot of misbehavior on the Union side but not similar stuff among the Confederates. Both sides were intolerant and the Confederates were first with conscription. The Confederate government was so corrupt that the front line troops were hungry even thought the Confederacy had plenty of food. (Enough for General Sherman to live off later.)The battle scenes were realistic, but at the end of the day it was unclear what had happened. An explanation afterward would have improved the film for me.

denis888 Not the greatest of its kind, Class Of '61 suffers a hastily delivered plot, too many plot holes and sometimes, poor acting. Anyway, Clive Owen and Laura Linney alone saved this albeit a bit shallow effort, as their delivery is very decent and very deep. The sheer tragedy of a class split, of friendships destroyed, of mates killed in the same battle is shown here. Well, bother, that could have been much better, had Ron Maxwell done that in his sheer Gettysburg style and grandeur. What the movie does show well is the very banality of death at war, the immediacy of tragedy looming, the simplicity of bloodshed. No heroism, almost, just a real suffering of men and women. That could be a better movie, but even now, it is OK

Havan_IronOak Class of 61 tells the story of a group of friends who are cadets at West Point at the outbreak of the civil war. While the story starts slow and lets us get to know about these folks as people and as friends, it ends abruptly at the Battle of Manassas.Not surprising really in that it was meant as the pilot for a TV series dealing with the civil war.As a movie it really doesn't stand alone all that well. Just as you get to know and care about the characters the film is over.