BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Pluskylang Great Film overall

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

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.

bravesfan35 I am a big fan of war movies but this one is a complete waste of time. Even though I saw how bad of a review it got, I checked it out anyway to see if it lived up to the poor rating. Needless to say, it did. The acting was horrible. There was a scene where a German soldier slaps a guy and it was so fake, it was almost in slow motion. I understand this was a low budget film but that's no excuse. There are many films that were low budget that became successful like Rocky, Juno, Slumdog Millionaire, The Blair Witch Project, Bruce Lee's "Enter The Dragon", and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. This film makes no effort at keeping viewers on the edge of their seats. Rather, it makes them fall asleep in their chair.

oyvindfrivold I have seen this movie twice! Just felt i had to start on a positive note since most of the reviews are bad ones;) This movie is a cheap production. Thats a fact. In many of the scenes I get the feeling that I'm watching a bunch of ww2 buff's that play war. but then the movie also has some decent battle scenes considering the budget. I haven't seen any major errors in Equipment (yes there might be some wrong tanks and a American flag from the fifties). however all the medals and uniforms are correct. the Russian cannon and handguns being used by the Germans are not prop-fails, they are very realistic as German soldiers at that time used everything they could to keep the Russians away. I have read some books written by Soldiers on the eastern front and the tactics being used are also relatively realistic.(some of them, indeed there are mistakes) There was a complaint that the Germans yelled panzer when the tanks appeared. That is exactly what they would have said. It IS the German word for tank. Or maybe the Germans built the pak.40(antitank cannon4.40) to take out their own tanks?;) Also, don't complain that the Russian are portrayed as subhuman assholes, most of the Hollywood movies I have seen does the same thing. Russians are off course just like everyone else but it is just natural that the Grunts of the red army looked a little ugly and weird. They had been at war for a long time, fighting a very resilient enemy.Now i don't like Nazis but I have a deep respect for the common Whermacht soldier. many of them where forced to war and in the end, they just fought for their own lives. even the SS wasn't all bad, many of them simply needed a job in the 30's or joined up to fight communism. The German soldier was just like every soldier in a major war. Afraid. Few of them where politically active and most companies would get a political officer that all the soldiers hated. most of us know that it is worse to have a bad boss than to work in his competition, so lets give the common German soldier of ww2 a break:)I didn't read all the reviews, so maybe all this have been said before. I don't care. I like this movie.just get past the fact that it is far below the budget of most war films, and one might find that the movie is good. There are times when the story feels choppy, but again it has a very low budget so I suppose parts could have been cut.I'll give it a 6 out of 10. could have been much better, but all in all, it's cool.

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.

arnsvensson A few poster seems to have problems that at the beginning of the film some Germans are using Russian weapons, and Russian use German tanks. One even made a comment about the Germans call it a panzer. And for this call it an unrealistic militarily and a joke. Well...About the history, plot, characters performance, etc, I leave for others to judge. But a simple note regarding uses of weapon.1. It's a well know fact, that the Germans and Russians used each others weapon during the WWII. Especially at the end of the war it become more and more usual. Both the Finish and Germans repainted the Russian tanks and used them. Just as the Russians repainted captured German tanks, etc... For you non belivers regarding this, I suggest you take a visit to a WWII museum in Finland or even better the fantastic tank museum outside Moscow, Russia... Enough said! 2. What's so funny that the Germans calls a tank a panzer? Panzer happens to be the German word for a tank. Panzer Division, etc.So claiming this movie is historical wrong, well yes it have it's flaws. But does it claim to be based on true story or actually events? Even the sun have it's dark spots, and movies like Enemy at the Gates and Saving Private Ryan that some praise, are surely more fiction then facts just as well, and they surely have their own flaws. But who cares, they are both damn good movies. For you WWII fanatics I recommend the movie "Talvisota" (possible buy with English subtitle).