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BenZ308
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Reviews
Leave the World Behind (2023)
Like a cake with expensive ingredients being baked by a monkey
The film has a great cast, clearly a high budget and an interesting opening. The dialogue is poor, characterisation paper thin and as a result the characters are difficult to connect with. The camera work is trying too hard, there is overuse of CGI, especially the animals, but the worst is that the editing seems non existent, a good director would have done a much better job. There is a lot of filler, people sat doing nothing with tense music to mask the inertia. The ending, is as bad as they come. To me, the 'Netflix" symbol on a film thumbnail is a sign of poor quality and a film to avoid now!
Weapons of War: Combat on the Russian Front (2005)
A surprisingly high quality documentary
The first thing that strikes you about this documentary is it's low budget straight to VHS feel. Don't be put off, this is a well researched, balanced and well paced look at the war on the Eastern front in all its brutality.
This is not clickbate made for YouTube or Netflix, nor are there reenactments in colour or use of footage from a Hollywood film to make it more palatable for the casual viewer. The analysis from the historians and university lecturers is insightful and often based on first hand accounts from veterans they have spoken to in their studies. There is no repetition every 15 minutes for where an advert break might take place and there is extensive use of real archival footage.
Overall, a far higher quality documentary than you see most of the time in the 2020's and it's despite its low budget presentation well worth an hour of your time if the subject matter interests you.
8/10.
The Battle of the River Plate (1956)
A fine naval war film
This is a fine war film, with an almost documentary like precision, showing real care for the subject from it's creators. The attention to detail is both to its credit, but also a weakness that will make the film feel dry in places to those who are not invested in the the real events. It is beautifully filmed and looks fantastic to this day. Incredibly it includes two of the real cruisers that took park in the 1939 battle. Some minor gripes are the American sub machine gun in one of the opening scenes (I'm sure an mp40 could have been found somewhere in the 1950's), the US flag clearly visible on the Graf Spee, the scenes in Montevideo are weaker the first half of the film and not enough time is spent on the German side to see their decision processes, it's almost assumed the viewer knows the battle timeline and subsequent events before viewing. All said, an important war film made in the lifetime of the survivors and a must see for naval enthusiasts.
8/10.
Detour (1945)
Enjoyable film noir
I found this freely available on YouTube in good quality as I understand it's copyright protection lapsed. I was looking for a decent example of the film noir genre as my limited experiences so far that I remember are pastiches such as sin city or LA confidential.
I enjoyed this film. It is very short, almost too short with little time spent on back story etc. The low budget mainly rears its head in some choppy editing and there are only a few locations, a few extra shots of LA would have aided the feel of the latter half of the film. The acting from the two lead characters was strong and I enjoyed the story. My main gripe was the rushed feeling of the ending, but overall worth a watch.
7/10.