Battle Recon

I'm normally a sucker for World War II movies. I've seen my share, even ones made by Japan and Germany during the war. Battle Recon wasn't the worst but it definitely was in the bottom ten percent and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

It was a low budget direct to video movie so I don't expect it to be great. You don't expect great actors or marvelous special effects. But you do expect to see consistency and some sense of historical accuracy.

A quick summary of the story is that six men from an elite unit go into Sicily shortly before the invasion to rescue a captured American who has critical information. Someone is a spy and sold out the first group of Americans. The movie has numerous twists, including ones to get the mandatory women fighting along side the American soldiers.

The historical accuracy of the uniforms was ludicrous. They were blatantly East German post-war uniforms with SS insignias added. It was as if a group of re-enactors were given some kegs of beer to play the Nazi soldiers. The same Italian partisan's gun went back and forth between a Mauser and a Garand as if nobody knew the difference. But the worst part of all was the absolutely cliché evil SS leader.

If it's free on TV and you're desperate then try it. Otherwise don't rot your brain on this one.

Very like the previous reviewer I was not expecting a great amount from Battle Brigade, but I did want to see some effort. Effort that to be honest with you I did not see. If there was any redeeming quality whatsoever it would be the beautiful eye candy of the Italian girl. That however was nowhere near enough to save the movie. I knew that the production values were going to come off short, but the way Battle Brigade is shot, lit and edited is done very amateurishly, almost as if the makers knew that it would be low-budget and decide not to try. The music wasn't very memorable and had a tendency to intrude too much. The acting is awful, seriously mannequin dolls have more charisma and energy, and are not helped by their stilted dialogue and cardboard cut-out characters(in particular the villain). The story is dull with tedious pacing, while the plot twists are introduced suddenly and jump around far too much, sometimes it was difficult seeing what the focus of the story was because it was so all-over-the-place. And people just running around firing guns is not really the definition of good action sequences, the choppy editing in those further spoils things. And then there is the lack of accuracy or consistency. This is more than just mistakes on uniforms and types of props being changed back and forth, it is to the extent that you don't believe that these people are an elite soldier unit. Overall, a really bad movie that was a battle to watch, even when you try and judge fairly as I always try to do. 1/10 Bethany Cox