(VHS) The Crossing

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Description

Jeff Daniels (Pleasantville, Terms of Endearment) stars as the American patriot who led a ragtag band of farmers and shopkeepers to victory over the world's greatest military power in this sweeping A&E original production. December 17, 1776. Hounded by superior British forces, his army decimated by disease, desertion and lack of funds, General George Washington faces the unthinkable: he is losing the war for American independence. A week later, on Christmas Eve, Washington will embark on one of the most profound gambles in military history. Staking everything on a fantastically risky surprise attack against a garrison of battle-hardened Hessian mercenaries, Washington sets out across the ice-choked Delaware River -- into a desperate confrontation in which his career, his life and the American Revolution itself all hang in the balance concluding into one of the greatest victories of all time.

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Every American knows that George Washington crossed the icy Delaware River in the War of Independence, if only from Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze's famous 1851 painting. The made-for-cable-TV historical drama The Crossing, scripted by Howard Fast from his novel, corrects at least one piece of historical invention--Washington did not stand and pose for the occasion of Leutze's portrait--but, more importantly, it frames the event in the real-life drama that made it a decisive moment of American history. Jeff Daniels makes a fine General George Washington, the quiet, dignified, and increasingly desperate leader of the volunteer Continental Army. By December 1776, six months after the Declaration of Independence was signed, the tired and hungry army had retreated to the far banks of the Delaware River, a mere fraction of the original 20,000-strong force. Knowing that defeat means the end of the revolution, Washington takes the offensive in a dangerous surprise attack that turns the tide of the war. Like the sprawling Civil War epic Gettysburg, The Crossing takes one incident of the Revolutionary War and digs into the whys and wherefores that make it vital history. It lacks scope and spectacle--major battles appear more like modest skirmishes--and lapses into patriotic fervor at times, but it brims with rich historical detail and comes alive with the stories of officers, soldiers, and a very human George Washington. --Sean Axmaker