IMDb RATING
7.4/10
4.6K
YOUR RATING
Children from Irish villages engage in mischievous battles using humiliating tactics like cutting off buttons and underwear. They sometimes engage in nude conflicts leading to embarrassing e... Read allChildren from Irish villages engage in mischievous battles using humiliating tactics like cutting off buttons and underwear. They sometimes engage in nude conflicts leading to embarrassing encounters.Children from Irish villages engage in mischievous battles using humiliating tactics like cutting off buttons and underwear. They sometimes engage in nude conflicts leading to embarrassing encounters.
- Awards
- 2 nominations
- Director
- Writers
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- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe parents of one of the boys in this film took a court action to prevent this film being released. The grounds for their action were that their son's naked buttocks could be seen in the film. the action was dismissed on the grounds that they (the buttocks) didn't appear on screen long enough to allow identification and also that the parents should have raised their objection before the scene was filmed.
- GoofsAfter the third skirmish, the Ballys get dressed in the boathouse/HQ and air some complaints to Fergus. Peter, is wearing a green and black coat with a light blue shirt buttoned up except for the collar in medium shots (from 40:33 to 40:34 and 40:39 to 40:40), but is shown with his shirt completely unbuttoned revealing his undershirt in a longer shot (40:43 to 40:45) which cuts back to the closer shot with his shirt buttoned (40:46). Another unbuttoned longer shot subsequently appears (40:52 to 40:53).
- Quotes
Little Con: His willie, cut off his willie.
- ConnectionsFeatured in What's Up Doc?: Episode #3.6 (1994)
Featured review
Something of a classic
This is a very fun and light-hearted film that is impossible not to like. Based on a French novel that has also been adapted a couple of times in France, the story is transported to Ireland and concerns the rivalry between the kids from two villages. Carrickdowse and Ballydowse are separated by a bridge, and in the evenings after school, mobs of boys meet in the fields and fight each other with sticks and rocks and set new and ever-changing border lines. The 'war' reaches new levels when a new form of trophy-taking comes into play, whereby the groups capture a member from the opposing village and cut off the buttons from his shirts and rip his clothes. In order to fight this war, the Carrickdowse leader Fergus orders his soldiers to assemble all buttons and threads they can find, so that they aren't punished by their parents if they are captured and then return home without any clothes. "War of the Buttons" is something of a family-classic in Ireland these days. Watching it all these years later I can appreciate the fine cast of actors that the film was able to gather. This was by no means a low-budget movie, it's more along the lines of "The Commitments" in terms of the international investment it received than anything else made in Ireland. It was produced by David Puttnam, who had produced a Best Picture Oscar-winner with "Chariots of Fire" in the 80s, and the screenplay was written by Colin Welland, who also won an Oscar for that one. That was quite a considerable pedigree behind it. Amongst the cast there is Liam Cunningham, who was only really starting out on the screen in 1994, and the always solid Colm Meaney. The young cast all did a great job, too, and the cinematography was spot-on in visually reconstructing an Ireland from the 1960s/70s.
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Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
- Languages
- Also known as
- Війна ґудзиків
- Filming locations
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Gross US & Canada
- $12,712
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $4,930
- Oct 1, 1995
- Gross worldwide
- $12,712
- Runtime1 hour 34 minutes
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1
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