War Horse (2011)

This is an okay movie. Ted (Peter Mullan) buys a colt at an auction and his wife worries that he wasted the money and they won’t be able to pay rent on their farm in Devon, England. Their son Albert (Jeremy Irvine) agrees to train and care for the horse and names him Joey. Albert trains Joey for the plough; however a rainstorm destroys the turnip field, so to pay the overdue rent Ted sells Joey to Captain James Nicholls as the First World War breaks out in 1914. Before the horse is taken, Albert ties his father's pennant to Joey's bridle. Joey is trained for military operations and deployed to France.

It is an adaptation of the 1982 children's novel written by British author Michael Morpurgo. There is also a 2007 play based on the story. General Jack Seely, a close friend of Winston Churchill, wrote a book in 1934 about his charger called My Horse Warrior, which was re-released under the title of Warrior: The Amazing Story of a Real War Horse. The Second Boer War was fought from 1899 until 1902 between the British Empire and the Afrikaans-speaking Dutch settlers of two independent Boer republics in southern Africa.