This excellent made for TV drama-documentary retell's the story of Shackleton's legendary 1915/16 expedition to the Antarctic but from the viewpoint of the captain of Endurance, Frank Worsley. It is, perhaps justifiably, a bit negative about Shackleton, but in any case you can't fail to be awed once more by the guys involved and the feats achieved. It's all rather well done, mixing Frank Hurleys images contemporary interviews and dramatic reconstructions well.

An outstanding docudrama which tells the true story of the Shackleton adventure from the perspective of Captain Worsley, the captain of Shackleton's ship "Endurance". The film gives us an accurate, rather than a popular sensationalist account, of the adventure in which Shackleton is revealed to be not as big a hero as he has been made out to be. Here we learn through a gripping portrayal of how the survival of the stranded adventurers depended on the skill and judgement of Captain Worsley, rather than Shackleton; and that Shackleton himself showed poor judgement in undertaking the expedition in the first place, given the pack-ice conditions. The filming combines contemporary footage and dramatised reconstructions with interviews of writers, mountaineers and other experts in the field. The narration is achieved through a dramatised portrayal of Captain Worsley giving a lecture to a small audience at a club in the 1920s, in the calm manner of an English gentleman. The information presented is accurate and great attention is given to the visual details using CGI in a subtle but highly effective way. The casting is spot on and the acting is excellent.

(I dunno, I've indicated they are spoilers, but can you have spoilers for historical events?)

Excellent movie! A well-balanced story using a bit of documentary information, good reenactment, and wonderful archival film footage.

I know only the most basic information about Shackleton, I'm not interested in sailing, I'm not interested in explorers (mainly because they screw up anything that they find),and I'm not any more interested in Antarctica then I am in any other part of the world, and I'm passionate about the world...and somehow this is the second movie about Antarctica in as many weeks that I've seen! The other one being the Korean fiction movie, Antarctic Journal.

However, I love history, I do like biographies, and I always enjoy archival footage. I despise mega-egos (Shackleton),so I knew that would be my biggest hurdle in being able to stick with this.

The great lesson here is that we see that nothing changes in the workplace: "the boss" will do it their way regardless of what experts tell them, even if they have selected those experts themselves! Folly then, as it is now.

Excellent case in point: when they leave Elephant Island, Shackleton determines to go with them. I question the morality of that decision, but then his colossal ego is spotlighted when he says he has no knowledge whatsoever of small boats. A dead weight, in other words. I'm sure he had no interest in staying on the island (who would??) and no doubt he would want to look like the golden boy if and when he came back with the rescue party. In this entire story, Worsley is the hero, Shackleton is his ball and chain.

I'm not sure if the exemplary behaviour from this team is something we would see nowadays, with a typical lack of manners (here in North America, anyway) and the age of self-entitlement. That exemplary behaviour alone probably went an extraordinarily long way to saving them.

I'm cutting the shipbuilder some slack... Shackleton really deserved to have a mutiny. He was lucky it didn't pan out.

Excellent movie, so many things to commend it... just try to ignore ES's gigantic head.