Der Kurier - Sein Leben für die Freiheit

Will the USA & West stay committed to the Ukraine or float into betrayal once again? Hopefully we'll find the courage and honor to stay the course and not let Putin (aka "hitler") have his way. Should our support dwindle and allow Putin to succeed then we certainly will have the opportunity to watch history repeat itself as he will continue to "annex" parts of yet other now independent countries. Such action will likely draw Poland into military action and on their brave coattails we will find ourselves in direct evolvement in this current conflict. Regardless of mixed reviews all need to be aware of the depth of pain our betrayal caused so that we don't do it yet again.

It's 1944 and Poland is under brutal German occupation. In London, Jan Nowak-Jezioranski is a Free Poland soldier acting as a courier between the Polish government in London and the resistance in his home country. The Allies have decided that Poland shall be under Soviet control after the war. Jan is to deliver a message to stop the impending uprising.

In this movie, Jan is a horrible spy/courier. He is too impulsive and so pushy as to stand out in a crowd. The girl is too obvious at the moment of the party. Her reveal loses some of the shock. There is a difficulty with the story in that the history is well known. The question is how to generate any tension from his mission when the end is already written. I almost want the execution scene. It does settle on an internal conflict within Jan but it's not set up at all. Despite all that, there are moments of great emotional drama like the old farmer lady. There are some tension with some of the pursuit like the train. Those little moments elevate this war drama despite its various issues.

It was a great surprise and I recommend to see it to anyone who is interested in history of Second World War. The sceneries and locations are wonderful executed and the cinematography was of very high quality. There are many twists and suspense moments that I never got bored. I don't understand the low ratings here. Kurier is too underrated and merits great attention. All the actors delivered a great job and compliments to the director.8/10.

.. Not as bad as the rating shown by Imdb.

A technically non-sophisticated movie, the director is clearly not going to be remembered for this but it still worthy of a couple of hours of one's time at least to remind us all of the plight of Poland caught, like often before, in the vice grips of larger, predatory countries.

The narrating style could be assimilated to the cartoons that were in vogue after WWII, a sequence of pictures/events trying to capture the various moments of a story without the fluent narration that we could easily expect now but still a solid 7 stars, for both sympathy to the cause and people but also for highlighting an episode of the enormous sacrifice that the Poles suffered.

The acting was quite good, and there were a few really good plot twists with plenty of suspense. It is sad how Poland was treated as a pawn by the "super powers" who were supposed to be allies. This is definitely worth watching, and for a change the English translation was well done.