FILMS OF THE WEEK

THE BIG MOVIE

The Impossible (2012) 12 Saturday, 10pm, Ch4 On Boxing Day in 2004, the world looked on in shock and horror at the destruction caused by a tsunami in the Indian Ocean, which claimed the lives of 230,000 people. This film tells the incredible story of one family who beat the odds – usually the stuff of ripped-from-the-headlines TV movies or low-budget disaster flicks. It benefits enormously from a strong cast, headed by Naomi Watts (above) and Ewan McGregor as the parents who take their three young boys on holiday to Thailand. It also has a budget big enough to convincingly re-create the awe-inspiring scale of the tsunami, a sequence that is simply heart-stopping. It’s an emotional story, too – of course – about a close family torn apart by disaster, but the balance of sentiment, tension and adventure is perfectly struck.

CLASSIC FILM CHOICE

Sergeant Rutledge (1960) PG Saturday, 11.55pm, BBC2 John Ford’s frontier crime drama tackles racism in the US military and wider late-19th-century society head on, yet remains a time capsule of the era in which it was made. The 1960s language and racial stereotyping may jar with modern audiences, but taken in context, there is much to admire in Ford’s bold and involving critique. Woody Strode (above, with Constance Towers) stars as Braxton Rutledge, a First Sergeant in the all-black 9th US Cavalry, a soldier proud to fight and to die for his country. But his loyalty is not repaid when he is wrongly accused of the rape and murder of a white officer’s daughter, and, in the face of mounting prejudice, he finds not just his honour, but that of fellow soldiers, in jeopardy. Jeffrey Hunter is the white officer sent to defend Rutledge in court as the truth behind the shocking events unfolds in flashback.