Company of Heroes

I like WW2 movies. It's not that I expected a lot from this one. Overall it let me down. I have enjoyed some of the main actors in other movies. The premise was solid. But the overall feel of the movie was it was trying too hard. This is a B movie at best. I watched the entire movie and was mildly entertained. Set your expectations low. It seems that any "new" war movie is either a blockbuster or a sub-par offering. My personal rating system is fairly simple. If I watch the movie in it's entirely it automatically gets a 5, because it did what it was supposed to do. It entertained me. Company of Heroes will go on my shelf and probably never be watched again. It must of been a straight to DVD release. http://thelemondreport.blogspot.ca/

I am watching Company of Heroes presently. The story is set in the Battle of the Bulge period. The force on the attack are Americans. Normally in a war one uses the weapons of your own side. The "sniper" hero is carrying a post-war FN-49 rifle. It was first issued to a military unit in 1949. Another soldier in the unit was carrying a British issue Number IV Mark 1 or Mark 2 SMLE infantry rifle.

Their historical sins were not limited to the American unit. It may sound trivial, but the babe spends half the movie in pants. That may sound trivial but the Feuhrer forbade women to wear pants. She wouldn't go into a Nazi base in tight fitting slacks.

Well, you may think that's all trivial but that's just immediately ended the suspension of disbelief for me. It only gets worse from there. The plot is equally ludicrous. Let's just say that by the time the whole mess had happened, we have managed to run into a Russian who speaks excellent English and a British bar brawler who both save the day in their own way.

So, is it a "stay away" movie? No. If you REALLY need something to soothe your craving for some violence or a 21st Century politically correct WW II movie, this will fit the bill quite well. But that's about all.

On viewing this film I was excited by the cast. As a fan of both Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers seeing cast members from both made me giddy with anticipation on watching the film.

All in all the film story is quite good - I liked it. The acting is fine on most parts as you would expect from the cast - lets face it, several of the cast crew are more than qualified to fulfil their roles.

I cannot believe the annoyance allowed to be taken over by this film by the dull and out of place sound effects and music - music being my main gripe. What on earth was the sound production crew doing? If you watch any good war film dating back to the 40's the music is not the bug of any film, until I saw this. There was absolutely no need for the music over the scenes, it made the film feel cheap (OK it is low budget) where no music would had made it feel realistic. The sounds of tank movements, back ground noise, shots, explosions would have made this film feel 200 times better rather than the music. Why? The sound effects ruin the picture and atmosphere.

In general, the effects on video are OK. If there was a way to improve this picture just leave the voices in, delete pretty much all music and replace with sound effects. Score would then be an 8/10 (for a low budget film).

I am at a loss why the hell the director commissioned the music.

This could probably be sorted with someone with skill re-recording the sound. It takes away "the edge".

terrible acting of all the roles. those escaped pows looked like guys full of stomachs all the time. stupid sound track tried very hard to be sublime and patriotic. the lame dialog further deteriorated the performances of all actors. the fire-fighting scenes looked so staged. this is one of the worst wwii war movies i've ever seen. the whole movie fell so flat that you automatically disconnected yourself. got on a train to stuttgart before the nazi Germans, yet those Germans could have reached there so easily. the g.i.s, Russian and British pows all used sub-machine guns? and the ammunition they carried seemed to be never used up. then there's the opera singer, then the Russian could walked up to the guard and asked him to light the cigarette for him? my god, this movie is so awful and laughable!

Well, yes, they do, apparently. In the old days war movies used to be full of inaccuracy's, have stupid plots, really stupid action sequences and the occasional love story. They were enjoyable for what they were - a piece of entertainment but without the seriousness to stop you enjoying s good old fashioned shoot-em-up war flick. Then came movies like Saving Private Ryan and Black Hawk Down to spoil the lot. All this realism, slight adherence to facts and decent story lines really wrecked the genre. So thanks be to God there is still someone out there who doesn't give a f**k about all of that and can still make the same pile of do-do we got in the 1960's. Guns that can shoot endless rounds of ammo, bazooka's which can blow up tanks, tanks that look like nothing you are ever likely to find in any book about tanks, German's who can line up as if on parade to get shot, prisoners who are well fed, camps which look like building sites, etc. etc. etc. This is not the worst war movie I have ever seen but it was close. What the f**k Tom Sizemore and Jurgen Pronchnow were doing in it only their pay check knows. And, yes, there is a nude scene for no apparent reason. Like the rest of the movie you ask yourself WHY??????