Tobruk

There was a FRench movie called "Un Taxi Pour Tobruk" in the early sixties but it has nothing (or almost nothing to do with "Tobruk" except for the historical context).Based on a true story ,it deals with the plight of young Czech volunteers who were sent to war without any training.This is a situation which is still happening today when even children become recruits.This is a realistic depiction ,not very story like ,sometimes close to documentary ,depicting the sufferings and the small joys (the mail is one of their one pleasures but some of them do not receive any letters ).Even the cliché,as old as the hills ,of the sarge with a heart of stone,is avoided.Not exactly an entertaining movie ,but an honest one ,which shows war for what it is : young men dying when their life has barely begun.

I agree with Aiax, this is a decent Eastern European effort. I am justifiably dubious about Eastern EU films, especially war films. They usually suffer from low production value, poor writing and dialogue. Largely manipulative and Nationalistic propaganda films. This one largely does not suffer from any of that. It is a "just tell it like it is" war film without a lot of backstory development. This is not an action packed over produced blow up everything blood soaked war film. It does show the boredom and soul crushing routine behind the lines before you find yourself in a hot spot. Some of the dialogue and situations suffer in the believability department but the costuming, sets and props look authentic, they pyrotechnics are good as well. It's nice that someone has put a focus on a pivotal battle that helped turn the tide in the early part of WWII. Worth a watch if your looking for a war flic.

This excellent movie follows the Czechoslovakian soldiers who fought with the Allies in the Desert War during World War 2. Do not expect a glorification of the entire Tobruk battle. This is the story of a particular group, and what they experienced. This is an updating of the Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane - a story based on the realization by a young man of exactly what war is.

The young man's ideas of honor and the fight for a moral imperative are destroyed by the horrors of the war. This story brings home exactly what troops went through in those battles.

We watched with subtitles, but even without knowing the language, the actors brought the meaning through the language barrier.

Special effects are amazing. There is full frontal nudity during a shower scene, and horrific - but not out of place - gore.

What this movie lacks is a story, a dramatization, in other words a script. It is not enough to put together a couple of classical anti-war scenes that we have already seen in scores of movies (like for example when a grenade hits and instantly amputates both of a soldier's legs, reminiscent of Black Hawk down), add to that some clichéd soldier behavior (very similar to Jarhead and other movies) and expect this to make for a good film. As a result we couldn't care less what happens to any of the protagonists, we do not have a sense of what is happening on the battlefield and why (even if one knows his history) and we are left empty when the movie finally ends.

On a more positive note, what really is excellent in this movie is the cinematography (reminds me very much of David Lean) and sound (the artillery barrages really sound convincing). This alone however is nowhere nearly enough to elevate this movie to anything but below average.

This narrow insight into the famous battle of the North African Campaign during the Second World War could just leave you cold. Agreed, there generally aren't too many productions about the (Czecho)Slovakian participation in the war but I have to say that Dark Blue World was simply the better and the more interesting movie. Maybe I was just too much disappointed by the advertising of the film that promised to consider the whole battle but this film presented only very small portion of the action. More highlighted were some shocking twists of a runaway soldier, which maybe have a fair anti-war purpose but then the movie should have had entirely a different name than "Tobruk". Avoid this if you want to see a film about the battle of Tobruk; and watch this if you were looking for a film about war in bare bones.