The War I Knew

I was hoping for so much more. The opening scene, at night, was so grainy and purple I felt sure it was shot on a cheap smartphone. There is a huge "leap from nowhere" after a completely inadequate "action" scene, in which the protagonist mysteriously teleports from behind a tree into a barn. Rather like the "with one bound, he was free" writing of Edgar Rice Burroughs. Most of the rest seemed to have been borrowed from a tourist promotion for walks in rural France, with the exception of some dreadfully acted scenes which frankly were annoying because I felt that they were on the edge of belittling those who actually were in the war. My overwhelming impression is that it had a budget of about a hundred quid.

Appalling. Amateur. Aggravating.

I have an historical interest and basic understanding of D-Day and it's era. I was therefore genuinely amazed after checking several 'reasonable' reviews, before deciding to endure this travesty.

Such a disappointing interpretation of a good WW2 story, at every level.

A missed opportunity. Cringeworthy.

I know a little about The Normandy Invasion (Summer 1944) and was saddened to see how very badly this story was portrayed. The landscape looked nothing like Normandy; was it The Brecon Beacons? The behaviour of the four allied soldiers was very unlike any military unit I have worked with and there were few signs or sounds of airborne activity. Lastly the film claims that Jonny Barrows was awarded The VC. I cannot find any record of such an award being made. I would welcome any comments from the producer so I could explain why he did not make a better job of an interesting story.

After a few days of watching back to back WW1 and WW2 films both blockbuster and independent, I eventually got down my list to The War I Knew.

I wish I never knew this film existed!

From the very start the script and acting are cheesy, wooden and what you'd expect from a high school drama group, and a bad one at that.

I'm not even being picky about the uniforms, weapons or the landscape chosen for the filming. I'll give them some slack on that front as these things cost money. But to get the colour or consistency of blood is one of the easiest and cheapest things to do, I'll give you a head start! it's not one shade of pink or looks like coloured water.

The acting and the script come across as a mixture of a really bad episode of Dad's Army meets a Carry On film and then all of a sudden they try acting with some seriousness and grit...to be honest, I've felt more real emotion from a episode of the teletubbies when there's no tubby toast.

If they intended to show respect to those who fought in the war then they did the complete opposite. No group of soldiers, behind enemy lines would jump up in the air shouting and whooping, high fiving each other after shooting a German soldier.

This should really be in a spoof comedy genre just so viewers know to avoid it.

I love a good war movie but unfortunately this isn't one.

From the opening sequence's where the British "Para's" are about to make a suicidal attack I could tell this was a poorly researched piece of film. The whole production is full of glaring historical mistakes that set the film up to be a massive failure.

British Paratroopers wearing R.E.M.E blouses, brodie helmets and using American issued rifles.... 5 minutes on Wikipedia could have saved this productions team some embarrassment and myself 15 minutes of my life I can never get back.

1/10