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Reviews
Everyman's War (2009)
Excellent Soldier's Story
The Bad: We gotta take points away because many of the actors were just noobs. The German general waving his finger around like he's clever, the two older people reciting Pollyanna lines at the end of the movie.
The Ugly: Not much. Great pains were made to make this film an extremely effective period piece, at the cost of all the memorabilia being in museum quality. I mean seriously, is every 1940 car going to be running around snow country spotless and with new wax? This is a minor point, but it would have been very easy for the filmmaker to address.
The Good: Excellent story, and excellent manner in which it was told. Excellent acting by the principles. Extremely effective combat scenes, which I claim raise the bar on Saving Private Ryan. But most effective of all was the telling of life in the trenches. This movie could easily fit in the miniseries Band of Brothers, and would outshine all those other episodes. The movie portrays the Germans as professional soldiers. Note that this is a true story, and remember that war is 99% boredom and 1% terror. Firefights showed the terror aspect, none of these soldiers was running around (Rambo), nor were they incompetent idiots (The Big Red One). Saving Private Ryan was an allegory on life. No squad actually stormed Omaha Beach, then walked 20 miles behind German lines to successfully stop a Panzergrenadier platoon. Everyman's War is the story of one real soldier, his sufferings, his terror, and his losses. And the fact that this movie is compared to Saving Private Ryan is a real testament to the filmmaker, who should be extremely proud of this movie.
U-571 (2000)
this film belongs below crush depth
Background: I am a very patriotic American that loves our military, so I know that the true stories of heroism and duty by our forces are insulted by this preposterous film. The story goes that a U-boat's mechanics were all killed by fire, so it drifts in the middle of the Atlantic long enough for the American navy to disguise one of its own subs AND for said sub to FIND the u-boat that has been drifting for days in the ocean. If that story doesn't strike you as stupid, then you don't know how hard it is to find a ship at sea. Many movies have bad science or illogical plots in order to make an artistic point, but this movie made no point. Actually, the story was about an American officer who wasn't tough enough to be captain, and the entire impossible set of events was to set up the drama of the (SPOILER!!!!) officer sending a sailor to his death in order to save the ship. But this point was so far in the background and was so poorly executed as to be laughable. I mean the sailor was under one foot of water, somebody hand him a pipe to breath through.