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List Price: $19.98 | | Label: BBC Warner
Salesrank: 9473
Released: April 22, 2008 |
| Our Price: $10.04 |
| Used Price: $8.81 |
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MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Its 1915 and World War I has been declared. Aged only 17, Kiplings son, like most of his generation, is swept up in the enthusiasm to fight the Germans, a mood stoked vigorously by his father. Jack is cripplingly short sighted and the army has rejected him twice, rendering him too myopic even for an army suffering thousands of casualties a week and desperate for recruits. Yet Rudyard is undeterred, determined that his son should go to the front, like countless other sons, and fight for the values that he, Kipling, espouses so publicly. Using his fame and influence, Kipling persuades Lord Roberts, on his death bed, to get Jack a commission in the Irish guards. This intervention is barely tolerated by Carrie and daughter Elise (Carey Mulligan), as they disagree that Jack is fit to fight and fear for his safety on the front line. Jack is instantly popular with his troop he is a great leader and trains tirelessly to overcome the disability that is his eyesight. Six months later Jack sails to France as a lieutenant. Jack went missing in action during the Battle of Loos and his mother and father carried out an increasingly desperate search for him, spanning many years and many miles.
DVD Features:
Deleted Scenes
Interviews
Description of My Boy Jack:
As affecting as it is thought-provoking, ITV's My Boy Jack illustrates the dangers of unbridled patriotism. To grow up the child of a famous author is burden enough, but when the boy must embody the beliefs of the man, the consequences can be devastating. In the case of John "Jack" Kipling (Harry Potter's Daniel Radcliffe in his most mature role to date), 17-year-old son of Rudyard Kipling (Four Weddings and a Funeral's David Haig), his father's passion for King and Country leads to a preventable tragedy. Based on Haig's play, the proceedings begin in 1914, prior to the outbreak of World War II. Jack attempts to join the army and the navy, but both reject him due to severe shortsightedness, so Kipling Sr. pulls strings to place him with the Irish Guards. Jack's sister, Elsie (Bleak House's Carey Mulligan), and American-born mother, Caroline (a brunette Kim Cattrall), would rather he serve the war effort at home. Through hard work and determination, Jack scales the ranks from private to lieutenant, but goes missing in France, and many months pass before the family solves the mystery of his disappearance. In the end, My Boy Jack, which aired in England on Remembrance Day, concerns itself more with paying tribute than apportioning blame, and Haig skillfully portrays Kipling's guilt in putting his son in harm’s way and pride in a brave soldier who "played his part properly." Special features include interviews and deleted scenes. Parental advisory suggested due to situation-appropriate language and teen smoking. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
My Boy Jack Reviews:
Vanity on parade 
2009-09-03 - I could try to come up with solid and convincing reasons why this M/P Theatre offering really grabbed me, but all that matters is that it did. Kipling is portrayed very much as a British Teddy Roosevelt, bully bully, pacifists are traitors, damn the torpedoes,..... you know. And it all very predictably comes back to haunt him through his manipulation of his son. But the filming , performances, and themes all combine for an engrossing film, even if it is predictable. I kept thinking what a terribly difficult way to come face to face with one's ego, and understand yourself better. One of the very last things that Kipling says is that he let his son down, meaning that he did not see clearly and do right by him. This is one of those films where you can see it coming a mile away, and yet you're held transfixed.
Really Smashing!! 
2009-07-09 - If I were giving out awards, I would love to give several to this production. The most smashing male performance in the film was that of David Haig. Rudyard would have been proud of him. The thing that I love about this movie is the attention to detail, from the realism of the trenches to the costuming and the fact that they actually filmed it at the Kipling home, makes this production of "My Boy Jack" one of the best films made.
Daniel Radcliffe was the natural pick for Harry Potter; and all of us fans have watched him grow from a small boy to the man that he portayed in this movie put out a fine, fine performance as the young man that went to war for King and Country.
I cannot say enough about Kim Catrall that played Jack's mother. She impressed me and I believe that it was her finest role to this point.
It really conveys the impact, not only losing a son, but losing a brother and a cherished member of a family to war.
review:MY BOY JACK
2009-04-18 - I am familiar with WW1 info and Kiplings life.The movie is an accurate depiction of what transpired with his son Jack.Production values and acting are first rate.Pls. note that Jacks body was not found by the end of the movie,and indeed his remains were not found until several years ago.(it is unfortunate that there is now some dispute about this.)Of course the Kipling family was long dead when his supposed body was found,joining thousands and thousands of families in the same grief.
John
Serious film about serious matters...
2009-04-04 - A well-done film that (surprisingly, I think, for our era) manages to deal with the issue of war and its attendant and inevitable horrors without reducing the issue to black and white pablum. Many reviews I have seen of this film can't quite seem to come to grasps with the idea of someone being willing and able to shoulder the horror of sacrificing a son for a cause...and still believing in that cause. This film, unlike the reviewers, shows that...and withholds comment. You are free to form your own opinions as to the meaning and value of Rudyard Kiplings motivations and reactions. Similarly, in a short scene when Jack Kipling takes his first command, we are given a potted "why are you here as volunteers?" scene--contrived, but well done. The answers run the gamut with all stops between "King and Country" to "safer to be going to France than to stay in Dublin." This models reality, I think, and good for the filmmakers for making it thus.
The acting and period details, physical and otherwise, are excellent. The recreation of Rudyard Kipling by David Haig is shockingly photographic and believable. Kim Cattrall is quite unrecognizable; you'll have no acid flashbacks to Sex and the City. Poor Daniel Radcliffe, however, is likely to suffer the same fate as Elijah Wood...no one will EVER be able to see that face, nor hear that voice, without imagining either Frodo nor Harry Potter. Perhaps age will cure this, but I doubt it.
Here's a good film about perhaps the most horrid of wars.
A very moving moment!
2009-02-20 - Very moving film and done with great depth and faithful view on Kipling. Excellent actors and dialogues. I wish this film was shown in France in cinemas.
