Red Rose of Normandy

Let's see...

Atrocious acting, overweight soldiers, pristine uniforms, non-period costume elements, ultra-low budget effects... It must be a re-enactor film!

Full disclosure: I am not criticizing re-enactors in this review. I am, in fact, a World War II re-enactor and historian myself. That's why I recognize this film for what it is.

It would be much too time-consuming to point out all of the gross errors in this film, but my favorite part is when Klaudia, a German nurse, jumps into the machine gun pit and starts shooting at the Americans with an MG-42. Here are just a few of the many, many other things that were wrong with the script:

> Many scenes take place in a large, multi-story, walled prison facility near Omaha Beach. No such place existed in 1944, and still doesn't.

> Civilian police (Gestapo) have authority over the military.

> A private in the 29th Infantry Division on Omaha Beach has the helmet insignia of the 327th Glider Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division on his helmet

> The private mentioned above addresses his sergeant as "Sir".

> The sergeant then says, "We gotta get off this beach, our Airborne is taking a hell of a pounding!" How does he know what the Airborne is doing? Why is he concerned about the Airborne instead of his objective? The Airborne troops are all over Normandy, too far inland for him to assist them with anything!

I would love to have enough money to make a ridiculously unrealistic film and run around in my WWII-era uniform. It looks like it was a lot of fun for the re-enactors and vehicle collectors in the cast, and the whole thing was clearly done in only one take, so no one would have been waiting around between takes and getting bored. I also like how they threw in a token Brit to be politically correct, but give no explanation as to why he's there.

It's interesting that the female lead (Klaudia Schiller, portrayed by Claudia Crawford) was left out of the credits. I know her acting was terrible, but so was the acting of everyone else in the film, and they credited all of them. At least her character's name was the same as her real first name so she wouldn't get confused when she was being addressed in the film. I wonder if they just licked her lips and stuck her to a wall when she wasn't needed for a scene.

I saw this movie last night- the title changed to "Normandy"- I can honestly say this is by FAR the worst movie I have EVER seen- war, or otherwise- it's one of those where you stay with it, because you believe in NO WAY could it get ANY worse, and then it DOES- The D-Day invasion was so pathetic- two landing crafts, and nine soldiers... and somehow, they manage to take over the entire Wehrmacht...

OK, I understand they were working with an extremely limited budget, and the majority of actors donated all of their time, as well as costumes, vehicles, arms, etc. But even with that taken into consideration, this movie makes "Abraham Lincoln vs Zombies" look like an Academy Award winner...

The jacket is by far the most interesting part of this movie and it isn't the worst movie of all time it certainly is in contention. At first I thought it might be a foreign film with dubbed in subtitles. Then I thought it was, perhaps, a Russian propaganda movie made to glorify the Russian military. My final conclusion, just before it was ejected from the DVD tray was that it was a high school movie class's final project. But even then it would have to improve. The director,producer and all the actors should be sued for malpractice! The acting is beyond stiff. The photography is dreadful with out of focus scenes and the script was awful. All in all it is a stinker and there's nothing good to be said about it.

As a WWII reenactor and history enthusiast, I tend to be rather harsh on movies, but in this case I think a low rating is justifiable. I can appreciate Mr. Struckmann's enthusiasm for working with reenactors in film, but it is simply not working out for him. He seems to bite off more than he can chew in this movie, given his roles as lead actor, producer, executive producer, director, and writer. The plot was barely discernible, and even though I did sit through the whole movie, I'm still not exactly sure what happened. Perhaps if Tino decided to stick with one role, be it acting, directing, or whatever, and practiced it a great deal, then he might have more success. In addition to the flaws with the story, the historical inaccuracies are so glaring that they seriously made me contemplate shooting my television. Many of the "top of the line" troops are overweight and middle-aged, and the wide variety of individual reenactors with different impressions means that you have many people with different gear congregating where they shouldn't be (E.G. Heer, SS, Fallschirmjäger, and Luftwaffe troops guarding a Gestapo prison). While I appreciate that working with reenactors allows the movie access to plenty of period vehicles, weapons, and pieces of equipment for a minuscule price, it doesn't make the movie very convincing at all thanks to their often unprofessional appearance and actions. Overall, I can appreciate the amount of work put in my Mr. Struckmann, but I think that this movie spends too much time trying to be an epic with hundreds of troops on screen and not enough working out the many kinks in the story to be worth more than a laugh.

I have watched many war films over the years some good, some bad and some in between but as a base to build on this film is, overall, the worst I have ever watched.

The dialogue and acting were poor at best but the worst aspect was the terrible German uniforms which appeared to be made of horse blanket as a one size fits all and even a low budget movie should stretch to shortening the trousers by 3 or 4 inches of some of the smaller soldiers. One of the tank crew was wearing shoes and a young soldier wore a very smart modern checked shirt with his uniform. Even in 1944 senior officers had doeskin tunics.

The uniforms of the US troops appeared to be motley but authentic and, although I know little about small arms, the weapons had an air of realism about them.

If the film is to be believed, obesity seems to have been a problem for both armies and whilst the Germans were scraping the barrel for manpower, hence the large numbers of pensionable aged soldiers on set, the allies did not and the average age on D Day was about 22. Some of the troops looked old enough to have taken part in the actual landings although I suspect there were more than 2 landing craft and a dozen men then.

I've tried to find something positive to say about the film and I suppose some credit must go to the male lead who managed to keep the side of his head away from camera where his ear was inside the hat to keep it on, it being a couple of sizes too big. The female lead was riveting, as in I couldn't take my eyes off her enormous mouth highlighted by crimson lipstick. Her dress length was not common until the 1960's but they did show off her excellent legs.

Somebody thought it a good idea to use a VW Beetle as a war machine but didn't realise that this car wasn't mass produced (and therefore available to the German army) until 1945.

I look forward to the sequel...surely they won't have the gall to do one.