Burrard (2005 film) (Napoleon's World)

Burrard is a 2005 war film written and directed by James Patterson, set against the backdrop of the Battle of Burrard in 1884 during the Alaskan War. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards and won five, including Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay and Best Director. The film starred William Hurt, Bradley Cooper, Vladimir Konstantyenko, Yuri Petranov and Nick Gross.

Burrard was considered a milestone in American war movies, and upon release was actively compared to Oahu (1962) and The Jungle (1986). Patterson, who directed critically acclaimed The Watchers in 2001, which was about the English Adventure, had wanted to make a "war epic" for many years, and felt that his previous war project had been limited by its racial commentary.

Plot
The film is told from two alternating perspectives, one from the Americans and one from the Alaskans. The Alaskan side has the entirety of its dialogue in subtitled Russian, but the American angle is more deeply explored.

The film opens with General James Nansett (William Hurt) speaking to a cabal of generals in Tacoma at a fancy dinner, which includes a play and expensive courses. Immediately outside, American soldiers are visiting saloons in the bustling frontier city, finding a number of prostitutes and getting into barfights with the locals. Among these soldiers is John Rogers (Bradley Cooper), a former Presbyterian minister from Pennsylvania who joined the US Army after his church was closed due to lack of funds, and Abraham McGovern (Matt Spryden), who is allegedly one of the best marksmen in the entire army.

Nansett addresses a number of officers from the Army of Oregon the next day, promising them a swift victory over the Alaskans who are approaching over the mountains in the Fraser Territory. Leaving Tacoma by train, Rogers and McGovern get into a lively discussion with a number of other soldiers about what the Fraser Valley is like, hearing it is a forested woodland even wilder than the area around Tacoma.

Meanwhile, at the Alaskan camp deep in the mountains of the Fraser Territory, Ivan (Vladimir Konstantyenko) is having a letter dictated home to his wife, as he is illiterate. The Alaskans are not nearly as well equipped as the Americans but are numerous and shown to be noble soldiers - a group of scouts, including an officer named Nikolay (Roman Lukhov) come across a village fifty miles from Sahalee and spare the lives of all the American locals, telling them to run and hide lest they be caught in the army's way.

The Alaskans are led by Boris Anasenko (Yuri Petranov), who in a series of flashbacks is revealed to be seriously at odds by the artistocrats of Alaska, primarily due to his background as a commoner. He is shown to be intimate with his own soldiers, unlike a number of his own officers, who despite his seniority refer to him as "General Peasant." Anasenko holds a conference with his top advisors where they consider the difficult geography around Sahalee, specifically the mountains and the large Burrard peninsula that must be crossed to reach the city at the south shore of the Fraser River's delta.