Good craftsmanship
I just rented this film (on DVD) because I liked the cast. In the case of William H Macy, I just trust his choice in scripts. Whatever he chooses to play, should I choose to watch. We seem to have the same taste somehow. So I hoped it would work again with this film.
I'm not interested in submarines, I'm not eager to watch films set in any war, I'm not even particularly fond of Til Schweiger, our German heartthrob, although Thomas Kretschmann is definitely an interesting actor. One to watch, believe me. But still this film fascinated me. So trusting Macy's choice worked once again.
The story had a couple of twists which I always like, dialogue in two languages (one third German, two thirds English) which is even better, and quite well developed (main) characters. All this makes a good film, not brilliant, but good. Good craftsmanship. I liked the German actors's "natural" accents, thankfully they were not forced to have worse accents than they normally have. And I liked in particular that at least in the leading roles it were Germans the filmmakers hired and not some Swedes, Americans or Britons replacing them like in other films like Ronin (Swede= Stellan Skarsgard) or Die Hard (Briton= Alan Rickman).
So, I think I can recommend this film, even to people outside the probable target group of young men. This film is not so much about war and fighting, but about the possibility of enemies working together and even becoming friends if you get the chance to get to know each other better and realizing, we are all humans after all.
8 out of 10.
I'm not interested in submarines, I'm not eager to watch films set in any war, I'm not even particularly fond of Til Schweiger, our German heartthrob, although Thomas Kretschmann is definitely an interesting actor. One to watch, believe me. But still this film fascinated me. So trusting Macy's choice worked once again.
The story had a couple of twists which I always like, dialogue in two languages (one third German, two thirds English) which is even better, and quite well developed (main) characters. All this makes a good film, not brilliant, but good. Good craftsmanship. I liked the German actors's "natural" accents, thankfully they were not forced to have worse accents than they normally have. And I liked in particular that at least in the leading roles it were Germans the filmmakers hired and not some Swedes, Americans or Britons replacing them like in other films like Ronin (Swede= Stellan Skarsgard) or Die Hard (Briton= Alan Rickman).
So, I think I can recommend this film, even to people outside the probable target group of young men. This film is not so much about war and fighting, but about the possibility of enemies working together and even becoming friends if you get the chance to get to know each other better and realizing, we are all humans after all.
8 out of 10.
- missmarmite
- 11 sept 2004