jamieanderson-67808
I have to say I do not feel the rough critique of this film justified. Sure it is an Indie film and not of a million dollar budget. but they put a lot of effort into it, a lot of historic facts and nice war scenes, The tanks and guns were real not fake CGI and they made a serious effort here. I truly enjoyed it and watched it several times, there are some really good points to it, and the acting was solid on all parts. And of all the war films I have seen this is absolutely one of the better ones. And as film fans we should acknowledge those of smaller budgets not just run them over because they did not have a studio budget. solid story line and subplots they get a thumb up.
rlange-3
Let me agree that this movie is, as claimed, "based on real events". As in, there was in fact a Second World War, and there was fighting in Poland. Beyond that, I'm not sure that this movie is based on anything.Many reviewers have pointed out numerous mistakes in uniform, tactics, arms, and the like. I will add to that the fact that the British officer who becomes part of the main story group raises not a single eyebrow when they enter the German formation in the truck and decide to 'help the wounded'. What could have and should have been a taut cat and mouse game of deception turns into yet another farce, joining the incredible stereotypes overplayed foppishly throughout the movie. Virtually all the Russians are portrayed as cruel, arrogant, incompetent and/or drunk. The Gestapo are like caricatures from Hogan's Heroes, except we are meant to take them seriously.Anyone looking for a good World War 2 movie about the undercovered battles in Poland during the Nazi retreat will be disappointed by this film. It's only real value is that it addresses a seldom seen aspect of the war; it's too bad that it does it so poorly.
Marlonius
I picked this up for $5 from the Bargain bin at Walmart. It had the low/no budget vibe all over it – I didn't recognize a single name, or production company. It also had a very ambitious plot description and box art, replete with many, many airplanes.I'm a big war movie fan, and I also have made or participated in the making of several local amateur projects. I was curious to see what these guys had achieved with their efforts and ingenuity. Would it be a low budget WWII gem like Keith Gordon's "A Midnight Clear", or would it be unadulterated crap? As I often do, when I got home, I logged onto IMDb here and saw the reviews, noticing that most, if not all were bad, and actually quite hostile toward the filmmakers. This surprised me as surely anyone else who bought or rented this should have reached the same conclusions as I did before doing so, and decided to view it regardless. So, I'm going to try my best to give it an honest and fair review.Spoilers Below: The plot itself is not bad per-se. The bones and major plot points are actually pretty well thought out and plausible too. It centers around the closing days of WWII, and the Russian defeat of the German army in Poland, and the eventual occupation of East Germany. A British officer observer with the Russians becomes suspicious of the Russians motives, and as the viewer we learn that they have no intention of leaving "liberated" Poland free in the Post War world order, nor Germany. Meanwhile, the main German guy, for reasons I already forget, finds himself behind the Russian lines and witnesses them murdering the Polish Government officials. The British guy and the German guy team up to escape the Russians and try to evade capture while contacting either the English or American front lines to warn them of the Russian treachery. Along the way they learn to trust each other a bit because they're both Masons, and they also end up with a Polish nurse along for the ride.The viewer's knowledge of Post WWII world events supports the plot, and I had no problem with the overall idea.However, it is fairly amateurishly executed. I'm sure a lot of the issues were due to financial constraints, but there was also a fair bit of awkwardness and poorly thought out moments in the script. The frequent refrain of the script is that the "Russians are coming", but in spite of that, the main characters seem to be able to wander through the woods without ever meeting a front line, and only seem to have to avoid enemy soldiers who are wandering through the woods as well.The whole "Mason" storyline seemed tangential to the story, and was barely exploited as they could have. I wondered why it was in there at all, and speculate that perhaps some funding for the picture came from a lodge or 2 that maybe the filmmakers are affiliated with. Not sure about that one though.With such a stilted script, the acting isn't great either. However, I would like to mention that I thought the kid who played the young German soldier, Emile, did a good job.The music is pretty well composed, but mixed in pretty homogeneously over the whole plot, and is often inappropriate to the action on the screen. Plus it was hard to make out the dialogue during many of the scored scenes.On the plus side, it was a very, very ambitious project, and the filmmakers managed to pull off quite a bit of action with what must have been a very tight budget. They have several tanks, including what looked like a period correct Russian T-34. I was frankly shocked by how much hardware they managed to gather in one place.The uniforms, weapons and artillery all looked very good and seemed well researched. I'm pretty sure that the small arms fire was all CGI effects, but it was reasonably well done, as was the limited (i.e. not overused) tracer fire. The bullet hits on the soldiers seemed to be CGI as well, and I expect that that was done to expedite filming and also to avoid putting holes in what was probably a finite amount of uniforms used over and over. All in all, I was pleasantly surprised by how much bang for the buck they got on the screen. There were even a few airplane scenes that were again discretely used CGI.They might have been able to enhance the scale of the battles by some clever split-screen multiplication of their numbers of actors and tanks, but besides that observation, it was as I said well done for what I'm sure was a musicale budget.Finally, the line by the German that he knew no English besides "A few swear words and the lyrics to Chattanooga Choo-Choo", was a brilliant bit of writing and made me laugh out loud, both at how funny it was, but also how real it felt.Anyhow, that's my review. It wasn't a great movie, but I went in with my eyes open and still managed to be impressed by what they managed to accomplish. I will say that I'm sure that all involved in its making worked their butts off, and I admire them for getting it done and released.
steve0557
I'm not a WWII historian. I do appreciate authenticity in movies about history. Especially movies about American history. I know what most people know about it. One thing I do know is that there were only 48 stars on the American flag in 1944-45. The scene in the American commander's quarters shows a 50 star flag hanging behind him. No, you can't quite count all the stars. But, the pattern of the array is of the post 1958 flag. Couldn't the prop department afford to go out and find a period-correct flag? I could forgive terrible special effects and a bad plot and stiff acting. But, the wrong flag! Low budget indeed!
