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carljbewley
Reviews
Resistance (2011)
Shoulder shrugging bewilderment
Here be Spoilers ...
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Somewhere there's a massive hole that this film fell into. If I can catch the mood of the film in two words it would be:
Barren.
Still.
An interesting 'what if' scenario that is given plenty of time (too much as it turns out)to develop but lacks any inspired input from any source whatsoever. I can't really comment on the acting because the dialogue in the film, thanks to the dreadfully thread bare script, is so scarce that you hardly notice anyone is in fact acting or interacting with anything.
The film title is 'Resistance' but where is the resistance? If anything its about passive submission and acceptance - and that submission and acceptance is achieved without any real dialogue, interaction or event.
There is no reason to fear the invader and no real reason to refuse their help. There is no tension created although it's hinted at all too briefly, but fades away the moment the three or four words are uttered. Then it's back to bleak rolling Welsh hillside, standing still and not saying anything.
The lone Resistance fighter and his mysterious contact are criminally under used and the plot holes are just annoyingly irritating.
I read in another review that not all war films are about guns, violence and cruelty. I agree you can create a story in the backdrop of war that doesn't have to have these elements physically in your eye line, but as they are all key facets of what War actually is all about then pretending they don't exist is ridiculous.
Are we to accept that a German unit can disappear off the map? that Teutonic ordered efficiency just stopped being a part of the German war machine the moment they reached Wales? That after taking such risks to hide themselves that they would risk it all for an agricultural show? No. These were desperately silly plot points.
Oh, there's also some bizarre sub plot line about a map. None of that made any sense whatsoever. Maybe a fan of the book could enlighten me, but it's inclusion in the movie seemed to be to pin together a few very thin and tenuous plot lines and let the sound man get over excited with a stabby staccatto violin piece (creating a rare moment in the movie where you actually think something may happen here!....but it doesn't...).
The best and worst aspect of the film though was the ending. Best because it ended (hurrah) and worst because it just leaves you sat there wandering...what was that?
Company of Heroes (2013)
spoilers for a spoiled film (with spoilers!)
just about everything that is wrong with this film can be summed up by the massive con on the blu ray cover. Neil McDonough appears as the second 'biggest head' indicating he has a leading role to play in this, yet he is really nothing more than a cameo whose Band of Brothers credentials mean more to the film makers than writing him a decent part.
Now, if this was a 'boys own' war film like The Guns of Navarone you could forgive it it's massive failings and inaccuracies, but it isn't even in that league, this is a just a dreadful script from start to finish.
Vinnie Jones 'of the British Airforce'' (note not the Royal Airforce) should spank himself for not attempting to inform his 'Yankee doodle' film maker bosses (his words btw) of the glaring miscasting as most RAF pilots wouldn't be 'ave a go cockernees' wearing brown tam o' shanters...nor would they refer to a Russian as a Polak...given Poland is not and never was, Russia.
I know the military buffs out there will be upset with the tanks, uniforms and weapons used in this film as not since the dreadfully awful SS Doom trooper has a war film been so badly kitted out, but really even that doesn't sting as much as the plot...I mean can you really buy a story where a unit of infantry in the Ardennes stumble across a German Atomic bomb making scheme and rather than report back this important information, decide to go AWOL and just 'hop on a prison train' to Stuttgart? And the Germans watch them do this and make no attempt to stop the train...a prison train with no guards on it????
add this to the fact that the Germans never came close to Atomic weapons because err, most of the scientists like Oppenheimer who knew about atomic energy were Jewish...but hey, I can go with a small amount of fantasy if the film itself actually made some effort to provide an ounce of realism to the premise. But sadly, no, not a scrap of research has gone into this.
not even an enjoyable adventure, just a very sad mess of a film....I can't even finish the review, just avoid....