Red Rose of Normandy

As a WWII reenactor and history enthusiast, I tend to be rather harsh on movies, but in this case I think a low rating is justifiable. I can appreciate Mr. Struckmann's enthusiasm for working with reenactors in film, but it is simply not working out for him. He seems to bite off more than he can chew in this movie, given his roles as lead actor, producer, executive producer, director, and writer. The plot was barely discernible, and even though I did sit through the whole movie, I'm still not exactly sure what happened. Perhaps if Tino decided to stick with one role, be it acting, directing, or whatever, and practiced it a great deal, then he might have more success. In addition to the flaws with the story, the historical inaccuracies are so glaring that they seriously made me contemplate shooting my television. Many of the "top of the line" troops are overweight and middle-aged, and the wide variety of individual reenactors with different impressions means that you have many people with different gear congregating where they shouldn't be (E.G. Heer, SS, Fallschirmjäger, and Luftwaffe troops guarding a Gestapo prison). While I appreciate that working with reenactors allows the movie access to plenty of period vehicles, weapons, and pieces of equipment for a minuscule price, it doesn't make the movie very convincing at all thanks to their often unprofessional appearance and actions. Overall, I can appreciate the amount of work put in my Mr. Struckmann, but I think that this movie spends too much time trying to be an epic with hundreds of troops on screen and not enough working out the many kinks in the story to be worth more than a laugh.

I have watched many war films over the years some good, some bad and some in between but as a base to build on this film is, overall, the worst I have ever watched.

The dialogue and acting were poor at best but the worst aspect was the terrible German uniforms which appeared to be made of horse blanket as a one size fits all and even a low budget movie should stretch to shortening the trousers by 3 or 4 inches of some of the smaller soldiers. One of the tank crew was wearing shoes and a young soldier wore a very smart modern checked shirt with his uniform. Even in 1944 senior officers had doeskin tunics.

The uniforms of the US troops appeared to be motley but authentic and, although I know little about small arms, the weapons had an air of realism about them.

If the film is to be believed, obesity seems to have been a problem for both armies and whilst the Germans were scraping the barrel for manpower, hence the large numbers of pensionable aged soldiers on set, the allies did not and the average age on D Day was about 22. Some of the troops looked old enough to have taken part in the actual landings although I suspect there were more than 2 landing craft and a dozen men then.

I've tried to find something positive to say about the film and I suppose some credit must go to the male lead who managed to keep the side of his head away from camera where his ear was inside the hat to keep it on, it being a couple of sizes too big. The female lead was riveting, as in I couldn't take my eyes off her enormous mouth highlighted by crimson lipstick. Her dress length was not common until the 1960's but they did show off her excellent legs.

Somebody thought it a good idea to use a VW Beetle as a war machine but didn't realise that this car wasn't mass produced (and therefore available to the German army) until 1945.

I look forward to the sequel...surely they won't have the gall to do one.

I rarely do reviews, since I don't like to harm a movie, as generally there is something, somewhere that makes it have at least some minuscule quality to it, but I can honestly say that I have found a movie that has none. Nothing. Nunca. Niet. Zero. I am sure they had a small budget, but at what point do you need to say, "Hey. We have no money. Maybe we should re-evaluate even doing a movie, rather than risk turning out a piece of junk, and damaging our reputation so severely, that no one will ever give us any funding to ever do this again."?

Oh, wait a minute. There was a V W beetle painted in camouflage, and I like V W beetles. There. Now I feel justified in giving it a "one".

I saw this movie last night- the title changed to "Normandy"- I can honestly say this is by FAR the worst movie I have EVER seen- war, or otherwise- it's one of those where you stay with it, because you believe in NO WAY could it get ANY worse, and then it DOES- The D-Day invasion was so pathetic- two landing crafts, and nine soldiers... and somehow, they manage to take over the entire Wehrmacht...

OK, I understand they were working with an extremely limited budget, and the majority of actors donated all of their time, as well as costumes, vehicles, arms, etc. But even with that taken into consideration, this movie makes "Abraham Lincoln vs Zombies" look like an Academy Award winner...

I am a teenager who loves historical, war and action based movies. I saw the cover and rented it and watched this movie. Worst dollar I have ever spent, I thought I have seen the worse movies before I saw this, I stand corrected, This movie not only has the obvious features of low budget independent film, but the story line seems like it was written by a child. During the first scene when they talk, it was obvious from their "great" acting skills that this movie was going to suck, but i never thought it was as bad as it actually was. I do admit the weapons in the movie are quite spot on, just their firing effects draw your attention from the nice weapons to terrible effects. I found this movie to be more of a comedy then a action movie, because i couldn't stop laughing at this movie, if you are looking for a movie to watch to learn about WWII then this movie shouldn't be your first, second or even last stop. If you are looking to laugh at a film trying to be serious with terrible acting, directing, camera shots, war scenes and more, this movie is worth the dollar you could get it for at the Red Box.