When Trumpets Fade

When Trumpets Fade is a great movie, with excellent action sequences, fine acting and a sound storyline. It's better than Platoon, and I'd put it up there with 84 Charlie Mopic, except that it deals with infantry warfare during WWII. It came out after a series of real to life WWII movies, Saving Private Ryan, The Thin Red Line, but is made on a smaller budget and apart from Ryan's opening scene, it is a better movie. The cast consists of thoroughly unknown but very skilled actors, and the movie gives you a feel of what it must have been like to be on the front line in the Huertgen Forrest in Germany, late 1944. The Hungarian location adds realism as well.

The story basically revolves around the single minded efforts of private (then sergeant, then lieutenant) Manning (Ron Eldard) to stay alive and out of the meatgrinder that is conventional warfare, no matter what, even though ironically, the fact that he survives means that he has to put up for ever more dangerous tasks because he's the only one near who has any close-up experience.

I'll add that the videostore I go to allows you to rent 5 movies for the price of 3, and keep them for a full week. Every day after watching another movie, I couldn't help but re-watch "When Trumpets Fade", and every time I found something new and something more made sense to me.

This is one outstanding movie, very well produced and if you like war movies from the grunt's point of view, don't miss it.

this movie accurately portrays what is was like for green recruits to be on the front lines of battle. this movie is about a private Manning who is part of a squad that is entirely wiped out. having been the only one to survive he is promoted to sergeant and put in change of his own squad. After exemplifying himself is an act of heroism he is recommended to be given his own platoon. The movie accurately displays on how friends you have been fighting with and assume so naively would live actually end up dying in your arms. i enjoyed this movie because i enjoy movies about war with violence and gore. however i have to say that there was drama in the script that came up just out of the blue and it didn't really add anything to the story. on a side not Private Sanderson is the man! He should be made next company commander. to conclude i would recommend this movie to anyone who likes band of brothers or any of the call of duty games.

A tense and unforgiving war epic that follows David Manning (Ron Eldard), an American soldier in World War II who tries to get a discharge for being mental unstable although his superior officer, Captain Roy Pritchett (Martin Donovan) who immediately promotes him to be the squad leader of a platoon where all the members are new and inexperienced.

The performances here are nothing short of excellent, the battle scenes are well-executed, and Thomas Burstyn's photography isn't only gloomy, it also hides some unexpected surprises from Germans to mines, that are hidden in the ground.

Director John Irvin, who is no stranger to making effective and intelligent war films ("Hamburger Hill", "The Dogs of War") and turning raw talent into top-notch, has made another classic here. What this film has in common with the previous movies is that one or some of the characters are cynical or determined to survive. However, it's a shame that this film was only made for cable instead of being given a fair chance to gain some attention at the box office.

Two years ago a WWII veteran asked me if I saw WHEN TRUMPETS FADE, the story of the battle for Heurtgen Forest. He said that he was wounded in the battle, which history has almost forgotten because it was so overshadowed by the Battle of the Bulge starting several days later.

He informed me that it was chilling in it's dead-on accuracy, not only of the events within the battle itself but of the ferocity of carnage that permeated the senses 24/7 of everyone who was there.

After watching it, I realized this was not a "Let's travel to Middle Earth, and slay the dragon fantasy" but a testimony to the barvery, or lack of it, in battle, that men must endure to justify their existance, which is continually threatened by the enemy. There isn't room for sub-plots when all that is on your mind is staying alive; and at what cost?

All the performances are exemplary in this regard, Eldard creating a character that is not only believable but admirable in it's honesty.

It should be ranked among the new age of war classics of recent years. But please don't look for any love stories or soul searching introspectives, there wasn't any time for that when you are cursing the very ground to get lower than the bullets flying over your head.

WHEN TRUMPETS FADE is one of the very best recent WWII films. It doesn't have anywhere near the scope of something like SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, but it captures what it was like to fight as a typical "grunt" in Europe during the winter of '44-'45--and what it's like to fight in a war anywhere--about as well as any movie can. Appropriately enough, its setting is the bloody, intense Battle of Hürtgen Forest, the longest single engagement in the history of the United States Army and one that, ironically, many of the history books largely ignore. Many experts now believe that this battle should have been avoided altogether.

Ron Eldard gives a really fine performance as "Manning," a reluctant draftee-type who's "not about to take a bullet for anyone." One of the best aspects of this film is the way it shows the psychology--and irony--of how Manning's higher-ups use him via a combination of threats, flattery, and promotions just to take one small strategic spot during the battle. Just about everyone else in the film--American or German, I don't believe that there are any non-military characters --gives a commendably believable performance, but special mention goes to Zak Orth, who plays a typical replacement who, young, green, and unsoldierly though he may seem, turns out to be a fine soldier, and Martin Donovan as Captain Pritchett, a typically ruthless, uncaring commander to the men in his company but a bit of a Private Manning himself to his superior officers.

Like most of today's war films, WHEN TRUMPETS FADE is gory, disturbing, and, by necessity (since it's about an unpopular and rather ineffectual battle), somewhat depressing. Still, the dialogue, battle footage, and various other aspects are nothing if not realistic. WHEN TRUMPETS FADE captures the cynicism of war-in-general incredibly well.