Movie Review: ****^War Horse (2011)

This is a fascinating movie, with fascinating scenes.  A farmer is finally able to purchase a horse, and though over priced it is able to help with plowing the fields.  The farmer's son (Jeremy Irvine) loves the horse, but a war intervenes.  The military takes the horse, and it is purchased by an officer.  In the meantime the son is also at war, in the infantry, at the front during WWI.  When the horse is separated from the calvary (they were ambushed) then it is put to use in different ways.  At one point, a kindly local family adopted the horse, and it was again working on a farm, and a farmer's daughter's pride and joy.  However it is confiscated by the military, and put to use pulling heavy loads.  This horse befriends a horse, and attempts to take the other horse's heavy loads.  In the end, the other horse dies.  There are a few fascinating scenes where the war horse is scared by a tank.  It bolts, heading for the front, where there is row upon row of barbed wire.  Barbed wire and a running horse do not mix.  There is a tragic result.  However two soldiers, one German and the other British go into no-man's land to rescue the horse.  The British soldier wins the right to take the horse back in a game of chance.  However the wounds are too severe to worry about saving the horse.  However, a wounded soldier recognizes the horse's whinnies, and calls the horse.  They are restored.  But the horse still is put up to bid in the end.  The country farmer purchases the horse, to honor his daughter who has died.  However when he discovers the soldiers love he gives the horse to the original soldier.  They are able to return home together.
Too much plot, but the scenes of the horse bolting were eerie and beautiful.  This movie is fascinating just watching the horse in this environment.