antimatter33

Some Philistines here have complained about the music, which is hilarious - most of the space docs have truly awful, bloated, ear-splitting bad-movie-music that you might find in 3rd rate superhero film. Here we have nice classical piano pieces that do not get in the way, and instead fit the intimate nature of the film. Indeed the only improvement might have been no music at all. Usually I have to cover my ears because the music, with rare exceptions (Phillip Sheppard for example), is unbearable.

As for the film, it is unique in that it concentrates on the rank and file support personnel who made the entire thing possible - no astronauts, no big name managers and engineers, no triumphalist stories. Just people who loved being a part of a turning point in history. Highly, highly recommended.

This is a gross film. There is nothing about it that has any redeeming virtue. It was remarkable only for how quickly it went downhill. You start to like the characters and the creepy vibe of the island - then it just turns into torture and screaming and stupidity and complete indifference to suffering. I turned it off.

It always amazes me how many of the peripheral films that involve say people who went to film school, have a certain degree of technical skill, know a little something about movie making, end up producing one absolutely wretched film after another. This movie has decent production values for a low-budget film. Its failures are all of intelligence and morality.

Can't give it 0 stars or I would. I hope these losers are long out of the film business. OTOH i hope they are spitting into my hamburger either.

Some points

1) The Hurtgen Forest battle was a pointless slaughter that went on and on, to no point. At this stage of the war, the ranks were being filled by green conscripts with no battle experience. They were cannon fodder. That is accurately recorded in the film.

2) The division featured, the 28th Infantry, was known to the Germans as the "Bloody Bucket" Division due to the red keystones on their shoulder - they were a Pennsylvania National Guard division given national prominence. My uncle from rural Georgia was a conscript lieutenant in this division. After this nightmare they were given time in a quiet sector - the Ardennes. They were mauled in the Hurtgen Forest, and then mauled again in the Battle of the Bulge, when they were supposed to be resting and recuperating. My uncle was wounded, and missed the Bulge. His entire company was annihilated. He never got over it.

3) John Irvin is better known for "Hamburger Hill", a right-wing fantasy. Irvin was having none of that here. The script and action are tense, senseless, and dark. There is no grander purpose. The US was explicitly fighting a war of attrition against the Wehrmacht, knowing that they could afford losses the German defenders could not.

If you want to read a book about the life of a conscript lieutenant, try "Doing Battle" by Paul Fussell, who gives a first-person account of the experience.

This is a great movie.