Bardlerx Strictly average movie

Usamah Harvey The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Ava-Grace Willis Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Ginger Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

MartinHafer This is an amazingly good documentary about the actual 'Great Escape'--the one portrayed years later in a major motion picture. The film is narrated by Derek Jacobi and consists of recreations, interviews and various artifacts/archival footage. I was really surprised with the interviews. A couple were with men who had escaped but were captured and returned to prison (this only occurred with a very few men). A few were with surviving children talking about their fathers who were murdered by the Germans after they were recaptured--and these interviews were quite sad and touching. The most telling interview was the man at the very end who wistfully said "...was it all worth it? I don't think so"--mostly because it resulted in the butchering of many good men.Overall, an exceptional documentary--and better than the four-part one also included on the Bonus Disc which accompanies the film "The Great Escape". The only other film I know about this interesting bit of history is an episode of "Nova"--which I will try to locate and review at a later time.

Peter Collins The Great Escape was excellent film for it's time but the actual events of that escape are far more interesting than any film as this documentary shows. The real story tells a much darker, reality-based tale of escape and survival, documenting the atrocities committed during that time.While the Great Escape was brave, daring and heroic for those involved, it just may not have been worth it as this documentary sheds light on the facts and doesn't glorify the events as the much-celebrated film does. If there was ever a Great Escape remake, this is the story to tell. The true story.

Michael DeZubiria This documentary spends some time talking about what really happened, as it pertains to how things were different in the movie, but I like that it spends more time telling more of the story than the movie was able to, even in its lengthy running time. When the news of the mass escape reaches Hitler, the documentary explains, he flew into a rage and ordered that the men be killed, and it was Himmler, the head of the Gestapo, that chose the number 50 for how many should be shot. Having seen Downfall recently, it's even easier to picture Hitler flying into an uncontrollable rage and ordering people to be shot. MAN that guy was nuts.So the actual escape happened in freezing temperatures in the middle of winter, one of those things that was changed for the film (I have a theory that it was changed because of location concerns, which are explained in one of the other outstanding featurettes on the Great Escape bonus disc, and in an interview one of the escapees expresses amazement that they weren't caught sooner, since it was so cold outside and so hot inside their tunnel that there was a column of steam rising out of it into the night. This same interviewee goes on to give an account of his escape that is heartbreaking, to say the least.The story of the 50 men being shot brings up some major questions about how to carry out justice. As one of the German guards who did some of the shooting explains, "I knew what I was told to do was wrong. I said so, and I was told to get on with it. If I had refused, someone else would have done it. If we had all refused, we would all have been shot." How do you bring justice to a situation like that? When the ultimate fates of the German officers who did the shooting are explained it's hard not to think that they all got what they deserved, but whatever your feeling as to who should have been punished for their crimes, I like that this documentary shows what it may very well have been like for those German soldiers as individuals. It puts a face on the stories of the people on the other side who were following orders and allows you to come to your own conclusion.James Cochran was arrested right on the Swiss border, within sight of freedom. The sister of one of the men who was shot explains that her brother was on the run for seven days and she wants to know what his life was like during that week, but never will. At the end of the documentary, one of the surviving escapees says that he doesn't think the whole thing was worth it, given how it all panned out, and while the escape was a tremendous, heroic effort, I think he was right, but not because of any fault of the men. If they had just sat in the prison, they would have been disobeying orders to consistently try to escape if captured, but it's probably most likely that they would all have lived to see the end of the war and their families again. Sadly, we'll never know.

tcolones4-1 A truly outstanding documentary on the events of The escape from Stalag III in Sagan on the night of March 24th 1944. The documentary goes into great detail with what happened to the 50 men executed by the Nazi's and the post war hunt to track down all those responsible. Using great interviews with POW's from the camp the families of the men who lost their lives in the escape, tells a most emotional tale of what happened to the 50 ! As the previous posted noted, you find this outstanding documentary on the newly released two disc issue of the 1963 movie, "The Great Escape" in DVD! Also along with this, The History Channels version of History vs Hollywood" The Great Escape..another great documentary of how the makers of the 1963 classic made the film , while trying to preserve the original story. Both simply outstanding & a real salute to the men who gave their all in this story from WWII...very moving !