Based on a true story, set during the Boer war in South Africa, Breaker Morant concerns three Australian lieutenants, who are court-marshalled for executing Boer prisoners and inadvertently one neutral German missionary. The film is concerned with the hypocrisy and arrogance of those in authority and their unhesitating lack of loyalty or decency for those that they command. Much of the film takes place in a harsh, bare, makeshift courtroom, the power of the story coming from the well captured sense of anger and injustice, which is powerfully conveyed by the central actors, Woodward and Brown in particular.