'Breaker' Morant - Major JF Thomas character analysis
Uploaded by chalice on Dec 10, 2001
J.F. Thomas, played by Jack Thompson, was an intelligent man and well versed in his profession, although it didn’t seem this way in the beginnings of this case. As is clear to the viewer, he is unorganised, aloof, and unconfident. This is seen in the scene that introduces him to the movie… (Show scene). Notice how he is clumsy, and keeps dropping the papers.
As we journey further into the trial, Thomas’s confidence grows. At first, he is not very confident, and this can be seen in his stance - note how he is leaning on the table for support, instead of standing up straight, with confidence. Yet his confidence grows. While the rules of war prohibited using prisoners as shields from attack, prosecution witnesses admit under Thomas’s effective cross-examination that placing railway cars filled with Boer prisoners as the lead car for British trains stopped the bombing of rail lines. Major Thomas forces Captain Robertson, a prosecution witness, to admit that he too had continued to use this tactic because "though irregular, it was effective." It is here that the viewer can clearly see his increased confidence, that is shown in his now confident stance, he is standing up straight and tall, and he raises his voice to make his point clear (show scene).
Thomas felt that there were inconsistencies in the military code of the law at the trial, but mature consideration showed him that what was done in the courtroom was overall, properly enough done. His own performance had included some lapses; remember the comment from the Judge Advocate’s review that “…a heap of irrelevant evidence was admitted by the Court on the part of the defence despite the ruling of the judge advocate…”
But no matter the outcome of the courts martial, there is no way in which Thomas could have been accused of failure as an advocate. When he took on the defence brief his charges had already been subjected to 12 weeks of close, generally solitary confinement. Having been passed from court of inquiry to the court martial considerably bewildered them, and they had almost no time for consultation with this stranger who was to be their lawyer.
Equally, Thomas had no clear knowledge at the outset of the ramifications of the charges either in the military or legal sense, and no personal knowledge of the men concerned. Yet in spite of all that,...