The Poet

I watched this film after giving the good review on IMDb the benefit of the doubt. I have always been a fan of war films, but I have to say this particular one was a big disappointment.

The acting is mostly hammy (especially that of the poet himself; who is a rather overtly sentimental German soldier) and small blunders (Like the boom mike dangling at the top of many frames) don't help.

The story is very predictable and makes one wonder whether the whole WWII genre has been done to death.

If you've read previous reviews and synopses, you would have already gathered that the main hook in the film is the union between the German soldier and the Rabbi's daughter. It barely gets beyond that. Watch only if you've got nothing better to watch.

Films about WWII are countless and specially those who focus on brutality and murder of Jews. (Anyway it will always be difficult to match "Schindler's List").But, including all of them, this is the worst that I've ever seen. The screenplay is just awful and the whole story is not to be believed. The main characters engage in a romance that is not love at first sight but at an eye blink. If this would not be enough, the romantic pair is played by amateur actors. I wonder what Roy Scheider is doing in a film like this, although he shows a good performance in a small part, almost a cameo. The same applies to Darryl Hannah. There is a cabaret scene in the film that is simply disrespectful to those Jews who endured persecution and mass assassination.

Well this movie is one of those movies that exaggerate everything about the holocaust. I know me writing this would make some people angry but how they show Germans in this movie is just unacceptable. I see in this movie no real love story, just a political statement...Also the part of the German officers mother that pushes her son to go after the girl and put his life in danger is not realistic. The way the Jews react at certain situation, is also something thats not OK. Well it was for me hard to watch but I managed until the end I hope that this would be enough to save you some money... just maybe because of this I should give it more than one, but than again......no

I thought I'd seen WWII done in just about every possible way, but this is the first time I've seen a movie involving German soldiers traipsing through the Polish/Russian countryside gathering information on partisan cells. If only it were done better, and without the ridiculous plot, I'd have been very interested, but it went wrong almost from the start. Terrible screenplay, horrible weird accents, silly love triangle plot etc & etc. While watching it I didn't realize the small part of the rabbi was played by Roy Scheider, who I thought had died before this movie was made, and it amazed me that the actor was so much like that great actor, and at how well the part was being played in such an otherwise poorly acted movie. I caught Scheider's name on the closing credits. A pity such a fine performance was wasted in such a poor movie. Saw this under the DVD title 'Hearts of War.' Thankfully I bought it for a dollar.

I am being generous by giving this movie a 4 out of 10. Please don't be fooled by the "9.3" score it currently has. You can thank the cast and crew of the movie which are obviously rating their movie on IMDb. The only reason this movie gets a 4, is because of that cute girl that came out in that horrible movie "My daughter's secret."

I am being generous by giving this movie a 4 out of 10. Please don't be fooled by the "9.3" score it currently has. You can thank the cast and crew of the movie which are obviously rating their movie on IMDb. The only reason this movie gets a 4, is because of that cute girl that came out in that horrible movie "My daughter's secret."