Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

Gutsycurene Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Robert Joyner The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Lela The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

MartinHafer A group comprised of British soldiers stranded in Crete and local partisans decide to try something quite bold--kidnap the Nazi in charge of the island. Very little of the film actually involves the setup for the kidnapping and the actual event takes place somewhat uneventfully. The bulk of the film consists of a cross-country trek with the prisoner to try to spirit him out of the country.I decided to watch this film because I love the acting of Dirk Bogarde--plus, it being a Powell/Pressberger film didn't hurt. However, my overall impression was pretty unexceptional. Now I am not saying it's a bad film. The acting is fine and the direction seemed good as well. The problem, however, is that the story just never seemed all that interesting--even though it is based on the actual kidnapping of a German general by partisans during WWII. Competent but not enough to merit its being seen as anything more than a moderately interesting time-passer.

zardoz-13 "Night Ambush" qualifies as a minor but factual account about the April 1944 abduction of a high-ranking German general by the British with the aid of Crete resistance fighters. The writer & director combo Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, who made "One of Our Aircraft is Missing," based their screenplay on the 1952 book "Ill Met by Moonlight: The Abduction of General Kreipe" by W. Stanley Moss. British officer Major Patrick Leigh Fermor (Dirk Bogarde of "The Servant") steal ashore after dark and help the resistance capture Kreipe (Marius Goring of "The Red Shoes") and take him on a grueling journey into the mountains across Crete to a rendezvous with a British warship while the Germans scour the terrain in search of their commanding officer who was the top officer on the island of Crete. Ostensibly, there is not much combat action in this thriller about stealth, but the scenery looks spectacular. Michael Gough, who later gained fame as the butler in the Michael Keaton "Batman" movie makes an appearance as Andoni Zoidakis, while future "Dracula" Christopher Lee plays a German soldier. Competently made drama boasts its share of twists and turns in the narrative as our heroes toil on foot to meet the British destroyer that will transport Kreipe to Cairo for questioning. When everything is said and done, General Kreipe salutes Fermor and congratulates him for his daring escapade. The mutual respect and admiration between the British and the Germans was a theme that recurred throughout the war films of Powell and Pressburger. British cinematographer Christopher Challis lensed this atmospheric wartime thriller in black & white. Challis shot the World War II thriller The Battle of the River Plate (1956) for Powell and Pressburger, and the film was later retitled as "Pursuit of the Graf Spee.

writers_reign even allowing for the fact that Ican take or leave Powell and Pressburger either as a team or working individually this is still pretty ho hum. It's not just that it's yet another true-life adventure torn from the annals of World War II - and boy, were they glad to get rid of it - it's more that it's exciting or engrossing enough to stand out from the others; it's not even that apart from Bogard and a badly miscast Cyril Cusack the only British actors involved are definitely minor league in the shape of Michael Gough and Wolf Morris, it's more that no two actors - and that includes Marius Goring - are able to give the impression that they are in the same film or often in the same scene. All in all it's something of an unintentional Greek tragedy.

Spleen Think of `The Guns of Navarone', but with these differences:(1) The band of adventurers genuinely like each other.(2) Their mission is not to blow anything up. Rather, they plan to kidnap a German general and take him to Cairo. It's a publicity stunt. But it soon ceases to be a MERE publicity stunt: demonstrating German vulnerability may be as important as creating it.(3) We get a good look at Crete - and NOT just because of spectacular scenic photography. We really feel at home on Cretan soil. Michael Powell, who had a talent for finding out-of-the-way composers (he also introduced Ralph Vaughan Williams and Brian Easdale to the cinema) has this time found Mikis Theodorakis, whose score is strongly flavoured but friendly to the ear.With all this, `Ill Met by Moonlight' is an unusual venture by Powell and Pressburger, in that it isn't unusual: it's another World War II mission story, and there have been dozens. It IS more civilised than most. It tells its simple story neatly and cleanly; it's sweet, unpretentious, and disappointing only in that, since it was Powell and Pressburger's last official collaboration, it would have been nice to go out with a bigger bang.The title is a line from `A Midsummer Night's Dream'. Its relevance is not obvious, at any rate not to me. Am I missing something?