Hitler's Last Stand

As a series of short documentaries this is good. It shows some well-known and less knows 'incidents' and they are presented in an interesting way. The storytelling is good, the acting could have been better. I guess the budget wasn't huge, because many of the actors are seen in various roles over various episodes. OK, John Wayne played many roles in many films, but they were different kinds of films and not parts of a series. If watching this series, in one episode an actor is playing the role of a German officer and in the next episode a Canadian one and in another episode he's an American soldier. Also, when watching episodes concerning castles, all have the samen walls. And residential buildings all look the same: not very house-like. Even tank no. 14 seems to take part in many different battles.

My overall opinion: good intention, not so good execution.

What differentiates this series from similar series is the close up and personal look at the action, sometimes with minute-by-minute accounts. Names, dates, times, and everything else about the series gives you an up-close look as you rarely get. Don't expect great acting or outstanding special effects. They're not there. But footage of battles and locations and some rarely scene footage help make this series distinct. Well, worth watching, though it could be better if they had a bigger budget.

The level of historical battle accuracy and reenactment was top notch. I have been watching war movies for over 40 years. My dissatisfaction has always been with equipment, vehicles, artillery etc. It's not easy finding WWII tanks, trucks etc that look new and many Hollywood movies must use 70 yr old resources. We all know by the 1940's everything in action was shiny brand new, yet in film, 70 year old stuff looks 70 years old. Not here. Equipment and uniforms were new as they should have been. Hitler was a bastard and we need to keep educating each new generation so they understand it must never happen again. That said, without turning this into Schindler's List, it still should have depicted the lose of innocent life caused by the Nazi Final Solution; extermination of all Jewish people.

The documentary series presents snippets of small unit action - battalion level - from the Western Front. The first two episodes I've watched covers the assault on "Abbaye D'Ardenne" by 1st Battalion Canadian Regina Rifle Regiment and the storm on "Fort Montbarey" by a battlegroup consisting of U.S. 121st Engineer Battalion, U.S. 1st Bn, 116th under Maj Tom Dallas and the "Crocodile" tanks of B Squadron, 141st Regiment of the Royal Armoured Corps. The former is a snippet of the "Battle for Caen" and the latter "Battle of Brest".

The concept is good: Take an interesting battalion level small unit action, which by the way in both cases turn out to be an assault on a fortified position, from a larger battle and tell the story. The cases are also well chosen.

However the overall quality of reenactment is hideous. One can bear the usual low budget effects and scaled down extras, a few soldiers representing the companies, but by god acting is unbearable. The one playing the Kurt Meyer is especially annoying. The equipment is not accurate. Crocodiles represented by Shermans, British Tankers wearing American suits etc. The story telling is usually good except lausy order of battles. How many of the Germans were on those fortified positions we do not told and I had to look up internet in order to figure out "Regina Rifles" is a battalion strength unit. If you're going to tell us small unit action you have to do it properly and give us necessary details.

Overall; good concept, bad execution.

They seem to have decent writing, access to world-class historians like David O'Keefe, and a budget for CGI. The reenactments, however, are horrifyingly bad. I feel for the extras who have been given not only the wrong types of uniform and equipment to work with, but absolutely no informed instructions on how to wear any of it convincingly. Firearms carries are abysmal and modelled after modern day police tactics rather than what soldiers were doing in the field in 1944. Many won't notice much of this, but for those in the know, the reenactments are unwatchable. And they deserve to have been the centrepiece.