Originally published at VolkStudio Blog. You can comment here or there.
Definitely an impressive film. Enough to make the viewer move in the seat. Tremendously immersive, worth seeing on the big screen. Excellent lighting, good camera work, realistic weapon handling. Excellent special effects.
Unfortunately, the depicted tactics were not realistic. Tiger rolling out of dug in position to close in with multiple Shermans instead of defeating them from stand-off is silly. Sherman letting infantry equipped with Panzerfausts get right on top of its position instead of scything them from standoff with cannon and MGs is also silly.
Worse from the standpoint of the movie impact, the narration kept getting interrupted with philosophical and religious asides. Too much undiluted pathos, and a serious disruption to the pacing. They should have let a Czech director make this movie, their approach tends to be lower key but more effective.
The final fight seemed to be a send-off to Sam Peckingpah’s Wild Bunch.
Despite my misgivings on the acting and dialog, this ranks as one of the most competently done war films I’ve seen yet.
