Commissioned in the field for saving Sir Arthur Wellesley - who is about to become the Duke of Wellington - Sharpe is sent off on a totally unbelievable secret mission behind the enemy lines, where there is a band of fearsome anti-French guerrillas led by the beautiful Teresa (Assumpta Serna, last screened sumptuously in the back of a limousine with Mickey Rourke). She totes two pistols and looks as though she's just left her hairdresser. Sharpe (Sean Bean) totes a rifle and looks recently shaved by a blunt lawnmower. They've packed in all the necessaries of the genre: lots of bang-bang-you're-dead action, bags of social tension and fisticuffs between the ungentlemanly Lieutenant Sharpe and his raggle-taggle sharpshooters, and the obligatory campfire philosophy sessions.