The Good War (2002) Poster

(2002)

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4/10
Disappointingly Below Average
ETO_Buff17 January 2024
Warning: Spoilers
It may have been a good war, but this is a below-average picture, and the sing-song narration by the female lead is distracting. Four other minor details were completely illogical and kept this potentially good film under the 5-star level: The first is that the major premise of the story was that the food quantity was being reduced and that the prisoners were being starved to death. They all looked pretty heavy and healthy to me the whole time.

Secondly, during a riot, the guards and prisoners are fighting. A few prisoners are shot, but as soon as one of the guards is accidentally shot, everyone simultaneously stops fighting and the riot is over.

Third is when Manin, the Italian escapee, tries to steal a car to escape, Gartner, standing behind the car, takes two shots at the car with his .45 and the second shot hits the oil pump under the car and the car immediately stops and steam starts spewing steam from the radiator.

The last is when the female lead gets shot accidentally in the back at very close range. According to her narration, she was in bad shape (which is believable), but 3 or 4 days later, she is out of the hospital completely healed and at full strength with no indication of ever having been wounded.
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9/10
Great Movie
principles25 March 2005
Had some great dialog on propaganda vs truth. Is not the distribution of holocaust photos during WWII similar to right to life efforts today? Endng seemed depressing but probably representative of the futility of war. Raises good ethical questions about humane limits of persuasion. US prison camps did a lot better than German concentration camps but still had some abuses. A particular scene where a prisoner feigned illness but was treated anyway probably would have never happened in a German concentration camp. Amazing how much propaganda was fed to (and believed by) the German and Italian armies. The setting in TX was very realistic as I can verify from my time stationed in San Antonio when I was in the military. A "must see" movie.
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