Battle with Boredom

Seven British soldiers in postwar occupied Germany are assigned to guard the obsolete, World War II Bofors antiaircraft cannon. Their mission is obviously a useless exercise but the soldiers nonetheless mount their guard in a battered barracks, awaiting the dawn. Thus unwinds a tightly spun military yarn that has a touch of allegory. Shrouded in canvas, the Bofors gun is never seen in its entirety; though it orders their lives, it remains irrelevant to the soldiers, who blandly carry on their battle with boredom. So painstakingly does The Bofors Gun record the brutalizing effects of military routine that it has been banned from several British army bases.

The shuffling guards are ineptly led by Lance-Bombardier Terry Evans (David Warner), an insipid martinet who conceals his ambitions in a cloak of good intentions. He clings to cold-eyed discipline and survives solely on the hope that, if he avoids a mistake, the morning will finally bring his long-sought transfer to England for officers' training.

One of the Tommies under his command is hot-tempered, brawling Gunner Danny O'Rourke, who defies ennui not with ambition but with fury. Nicol Williamson portrays O'Rourke as a sardonic, 20th century Ahab, ever raging against a malevolent creation. He sees barracks boredom as proof that God mocks man's aspirations, a daily confirmation of the absurdity of it all. Infuriated by Evans' platitudes, O'Rourke responds by plunging his fist into a stove and slowly squeezing the heat out of a burning coal.

Insistently, Director Jack Gold reflects the quiet terror of military routine in claustrophobic closeups. The soldiers sprawl in their bunks, prickling the silence with wisecracks and gibes to pass the time. When a sergeant enters, the guards are suddenly heel-clicking marionettes, wooden parodies of soldiers, drained of emotion as they parrot back orders. The camera lingers on the faces of Evans and O'Rourke, the Mutt and Jeff of the absurd, one fearful, the other flashing madness from bright blue eyes.

Midway through this longest night, O'Rourke decides to conquer nothingness by destroying himself. Deserting his post, he reels off in a grog-soaked bender and chops down a flagpole with an ax. Based on a drama by British Playwright John McGrath, The Bofors-Gun whirls to an ironic, literal climax that leaves the viewer more with the sense of having read a script than experienced a film. But there is nothing flat or literary about Williamson's biting representation of a human being tormented by both God and man, who in the end chooses neither.

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