Battle Force - Todeskommando Aufklärung

To be fair, I watched only the first 20 minutes of this movie, so my comments are only based on that. I might have hung around if WWII Sicily's "landscape" wasn't so easily recognizable as that of Southern California. I gave up hope when several shots showed the film's characters walking along railroad tracks on top of modern concrete ties with modern signals in the background.

I get the feeling this movie was a film school project. And if it was, then I guess it's OK for that purpose. If not, at least it was a good opportunity for inexperienced actors to put something in their blank resumes.

The combat special effects were OK... enough has been said by others regarding the realism of the combat itself, but I thought the special effects used for weapons discharge and bullet flight was OK... more realistic than those we used to see 15-20 years ago. That earned this movie its 3rd star.

Sorry folks.....this movie has terrible acting and a terrible script. Simple awful.

I really enjoy WWII movies and have seen 100s of them. Realism is a must in any good action flick (Patton, Go Tell The Spartans, Das Boot, etc).

From haircuts to scripted words and phrases, this movie was strictly 1975ish.

The German commander could well have been the commandant on "Hogan's Heroes" and I kept expecting Sgt. Schultz to appear in the next scene.

The best part was when this thing finally ended.

Do yourself a favor and view an old episode of "F Troop" instead!

I watched it through to the end. That's something. Especially since, in the opening scene, American GIs are firing bolt-action rifles as though they were M-1 semi-automatics, never once working the bolt. As the movie shows, they HAD at least one old Garand on set, that they could have used in that scene accurately, but no. The script delivered a sprinkling of facts about the First Special Service Force, and then ladled on a ton of malarkey. I won't address the fact that the set looked the same no matter where anyone was supposed to be, thousands of miles apart, and others have rightly criticized defects in costuming, weaponry, etc. I'll only say that, when the main Nazi bad guy stands TWICE out in the open, once marvelously silhouetted by the skyline, at, for the military, very close range, and highly trained commandos can't hit him, with an aimed Garand, a BAR, even the supernaturally accurate submachine guns, while your random, unaimed snap shots are taking out Germans who are firing from cover, well ... There are other, more egregious crimes against history, good movie making, and the laws of physics in this movie, but we'll leave it at that. The closing scene, I can say without spoiling the movie, was particularly wrong headed. Having read three books about the FSSF, I can say that anyone with a smattering of that information could have crafted a screenplay better than what was served up, with the same guns, costumes, and characters, and made a decent movie out of it, since their ACTUAL exploits still rate as fantastic, without exaggeration, to this day.

Piracy the scourge of the industry? Hmm, and yet with piracy supposedly on the increase, the industry is making more profits than ever. Bigger and bigger profits, whilst agonising that piracy is killing employment. Big profits and yet jobs still have to go? Anyone spot the deliberate mistake?

It's a mistake that supposedly leads the film and music industries to try so hard to smash the internet completely, on the basis that we are all pirates, liars and thieves and would never ever pay for anything - even if it was worth it! But so much produce of Hollywood and the music industry is dross polished up and advertised as gold - which in my books is genuine fraud - so who are actually the pirates?

I never object to paying good money for a good movie. I don't think many people do at all. But a turd polished up to sparkle is still a turd, even if you sell it as gold - "Look at the shine! Don't look behind the sparkle!"

Of course, the real mistake is thinking that people would actually pay for a ticket to buy this dross if only they hadn't been able to download it. I wouldn't have paid 5p to watch this (a friend treated me - and I didn't contribute) as it's basically a Sunday afternoon TV movie, to watch after you eaten too much lunch and consequently can't be arsed to change the channel even though you have the remote in hand.

Thanks for making snooze material Hollywood, I won't demand a refund of my 90 minutes of life, as I actually enjoyed the nap, but never assume that I will buy a ticket to support mediocrity. I get that free from the television. So count me out of your statistics.

As for this film, my opinion is zzzzzzzz

To be fair, as someone who absolutely hates most low budget WWII movies, this was surprisingly well done given the limited scope of budget and location. The acting was certainly decent and watchable. The script may have had its clichés, but what script doesn't? The important part is...it was genuine and tries to entertain rather than educate. It's NOT a documentary, which many critics here fail to understand. It's a decently crafted 'Drama' which was well shot, choreographed, and realized. The SS officer was a little over-the-top but again, this movie DOESN'T insult your intelligence by trying to be something it's not. It is NOT an amateur project by any means. It is NOT a 'Great' cinematic masterpiece either. It is simply, a reasonably well thought out period piece that offers some very decent entertainment despite a few shortcomings.

It's obvious these people worked very hard to make this project as good a movie as possible. There was no 'slouching' in how they went about shooting and producing this. If you want to look for all its faults rather than enjoy the sincere effort put into it, go ahead. Otherwise, have a glass and just let it roll. It hooked me, and THAT is a very hard thing to do.