Les Héros des Ardennes

The true story of Don Smith and his fellow soldiers leading up to the Battle of the Bulge in December-January, 1944-45, is chronicled.

"Fallen Not Forgotten" (2009), aka "Everyman's War," is a WW2 Indie only costing $720,000 and is reminiscent of "Straight into Darkness" from five years prior, just more straightforward and less surrealistic. It was a labor of love written & directed by the sons of the real-life protagonist. "The Frozen Front" (2017) is another comparison. While this isn't as good as "Straight into Darkness," it's superior to "The Frozen Front."

I watched it because I was in the mood for a WW2 flick, but also because I heard how little it cost and wanted to know if a decent WW2 film could possibly be made on such a non-budget, shot exclusively in Oregon of all places. Just think of the cost of apprehending items from the early 1940s, such as clothes, cars, uniforms, weapons, military vehicles and a tank or two, not to mention convincing sets. Then you have to have enough money left over for competent no-name actors and amenities, like lodging and catering.

Yet the Smith brothers pulled it off. Sure, it's a micro-budget Indie, but the story & characters drew me in enough to give it a marginal thumbs-up for those who don't mind spare change Indies. The well-depicted Germans even speak German (with English subtitles).

The movie doesn't overstay its welcome at 1 hour, 43 minutes.

GRADE: B-

I love WWII movies but this was some really bad dialog. Like they just learned their lines for the first time. Really weird. Oh and like everyone else said about the Germans but at least they were speaking German so not that noticeable.

This movie is like someone's first movie they made out of film school and they couldn't afford actors. The story line is bad, the special effects, the game looking scenes the put in was funny as heck. Everything was bad but the dialog stuck out even more. How did this even make it to final draft?

Really bad stuff. I wish I didn't see it.

The Bad: We gotta take points away because many of the actors were just noobs. The German general waving his finger around like he's clever, the two older people reciting Pollyanna lines at the end of the movie.

The Ugly: Not much. Great pains were made to make this film an extremely effective period piece, at the cost of all the memorabilia being in museum quality. I mean seriously, is every 1940 car going to be running around snow country spotless and with new wax? This is a minor point, but it would have been very easy for the filmmaker to address.

The Good: Excellent story, and excellent manner in which it was told. Excellent acting by the principles. Extremely effective combat scenes, which I claim raise the bar on Saving Private Ryan. But most effective of all was the telling of life in the trenches. This movie could easily fit in the miniseries Band of Brothers, and would outshine all those other episodes. The movie portrays the Germans as professional soldiers. Note that this is a true story, and remember that war is 99% boredom and 1% terror. Firefights showed the terror aspect, none of these soldiers was running around (Rambo), nor were they incompetent idiots (The Big Red One). Saving Private Ryan was an allegory on life. No squad actually stormed Omaha Beach, then walked 20 miles behind German lines to successfully stop a Panzergrenadier platoon. Everyman's War is the story of one real soldier, his sufferings, his terror, and his losses. And the fact that this movie is compared to Saving Private Ryan is a real testament to the filmmaker, who should be extremely proud of this movie.

Most war movies out lately such as "The hurt Locker" leaves veterans with a love it or hate it attitude. One of the main reasons for this is because of the gross inconsistencies that these movies provide. Everyman's War however is not this type of film. From the beginning, you can tell that this was a labor of love. The filmmaker (Thad Smith) actually based this story off of his own fathers accounts of war from his division's experience during the Battle of the Bulge. I can say this film was very historically accurate and right on point in capturing the realities of this war. From the costume design to the weapons used, even the troop characteristics you can tell that (even for a small budget) no expense was spared at recreating this event. Also the feeling and attitudes of those left home to worry about the troops was spot on.

Hoped for more, a Band of Brothers type movie perhaps? Sadly no, the script was terrible & dialog was flat, contrived & generally cringe-worthy. The acting was amateurish & forced, no realism in the characters or in the delivery. I could barely watch in the end. The scene with the repeated cuts back to the same dead body was painful to watch. The action scenes were cumbersome & predictable, in fact its hard to imagine a poorer depiction of events. I didn't feel connected to any character portrayed in this movie

Production values were low and it shows, that doesn't mean that low budget should equal low quality cinema, but in this case it only adds to the general malaise.

Not one for my tastes, missed by a mile.