Sangre y oro

Unashamedly inspired by Tarantino and Spaghetti westerns this is a total, unashamed, ultra violent, cracking good fun movie. Some great characters: the good guys are really good, the villains are hyper villainous and the action is really well executed.

I genuinely didn't expect this to be as much fun as it was.

How many ways can one kill a Nazi? Well this movie invents some I hadn't thought of before but it was all a blood soaked romp.

The acting is also really rather good. The two main protagonists are super sympathetic, although Elsa is much more rounded than Heinrich but it doesn't matter.

Watch it if you are in the mood for this kind of movie.

"Sisu" this is not. And that's very ok. Here, it's not one man against the Nazi; it's ordinary Germans against the Nazi - an army deserter, a woman, her brother, and some villagers. Oh, and there's gold.

Our protagonist, Private Heinrich, is just an ordinary soldier. Our other protagonist, Elsa, is just an ordinary farmer. And then the Nazis came to their village looking for gold.

The Good: People in this movie get hurt, they make mistakes. The action scenes are not too over the top. Some of the townspeople are bad, some are good. And the Nazis are all bad.

The Bad: There really isn't much that is bad with this movie. It knows what it is. It gives us the story and nothing more. The title tells us everything we need to know. Nearly perfect.

For a 100 min long film, it felt much longer, especially after the first act, of which was the best. It set up the narrative nicely and suspensefully, but started to drag its feet by the second act, and then the third act just became riddled with cliches and ridonculous estrogen-filled girl power antics that were all too predictable. Although the score was adequate, the soundrack throughout became annoyingly loud, overbearing and out of place. It's like the director thought he was being fancy, when it was really more annoying than stylish. There were some great action scenes up until the third act, when everything became overzealous to the point of eyerolls and cringes. It's an ok one time watch if you're bored, but you wont be missing anything if you skip it altogether. It's a generous 6/10 for great cinematography and sets, and some decent acting and the few well-done action scenes.

BLOOD & GOLD is a blackily comic action adventure about Nazis invading a small German village in a hunt for Jewish gold. It's unusual to see the Germans handling a subject matter they used to avoid like the plague, and I wasn't sure of the outcome, but rest assured this has the same kind of very European humour as many recent Scandi flicks. The Nazis are presented as dastardly comic book villains and much fun comes from seeing the various ways in which they're destroyed by our heroes. The film occasionally subverts tropes and keeps viewers on their toes, and the Down's Syndrome character is a great addition to the cast. A shame physical deformity is presented as monstrous (as per usual), but aside from that this is a pleasant surprise.

There's a ring of authenticity in this German-made war film. The action and the gore are realistic which make the storytelling so entertaining.

The plot line is predictable yet the viewer is glued to his seat waiting for the next gory scene to unfold.

Acting is superb. Ergo, all the actors particularly the lead characters dished out memorable performances. Because of them there's not a dull moment from the first few frames until the end. Take a bow Robert Maaser, Marie Hacke, Alexander Scheer and Roy McCrerey. Likewise, Director Peter Thorwarth deserves recognition for a gritty, sensible film.

It's observed that the film has a "Tarantino-esque feel. This is true. Which makes one wonder that this kind of film that hews closely to the Tarantino brand of filmmaking is possible outside of Hollywood.