Directed by Richard Eyre, it stars Colin Firth, Paul Rhys, and David Calder.

The film centres on the experiences of Robert Lawrence MC (played by Colin Firth), an officer of the Scots Guards during the Falklands War of 1982.

The film sparked enormous controversy when first broadcast in 1988, in part because it conveyed the flat indifference shown by government, society and public to the returning wounded from the Falklands War; this content forms much of the story,[7] as Lawrence struggles to come to terms with his terrible injuries, and to face a life in which he cannot do the thing he is trained to do, the thing he loves: soldiering.

The film also triggered controversy by presenting an unvarnished portrait of the protagonist: for example, his joy in the brutalities of war and a flashback scene toward the end which shows him exulting at the top of Mount Tumbledown.

[9] Lead actor Colin Firth is reported to have said that the political left and right hated the film because it did not conform to any fixed ideology.