c_o_r

This is not necessarily an usual review. It is more like a big personal "Thank you" to all the people involved in making this movie.

And now I have to explain why: About 7 months ago, my father was suffering from cancer that, in it's terminal stage, ended by affecting also his liver. This meant that he was spending most of the day asleep, and there was virtually no way to keep his attention on something for more than 20-30 minutes. We were trying everything to make him these minutes as enjoyable as we could.

And this is when this movie gains a place in my heart forever. I've seen it before, i had a very good opinion about it and, even if this kind of action packed movies were not my father's favorite cup of tea, i thought it may entertain him for a while. If not, he would go to sleep, more or less as expected, and more or less as he was doing it with a lot of movies also when he was feeling OK.

For about 90 minutes, my father's attention was on the screen and his main worry appeared to be, more than his illness and more than his pain, would stop that damn train before destroying a whole city? He died 4 days later. That was the last time he was able to stay awake for so long.

Obviously, a movie capable of that earns my 10 stars, and my gratitude to Mr. Scott, Mr. Denzel Washington and everyone else involved in it. I don't want to say with this that it has not it's faults, but this is the magic of the film, it was the best option in a certain moment of our family's life.

I know, a little bit cheesy, but i felt that i must write this down.

OK, everybody knows more or less what are all the movies of Bud Spencer about, so i'll not try to sell it as a masterpiece. But i still remember it as one of the favorite movies of my childhood. The story is the usual "E.T. meets all kind of humans, some of them very friendly, and others not so friendly", but made in the usual Bud Spencer style. Bud Spencer is the sheriff of a little town in USA, and has to fight with all the bad guys, army, etcetcetc. Funny as hell, the little "remote control" used by the kid was one of the most wanted toys of our times. I saw it recently, and... i still watch it with a smile, despite knowing that is far from being a good movie and also that it aged quite badly.

In order to fully enjoy this movie i think that you must know quite well the context in which it was made, or to have "enjoyed" at least some of the 80's in Ceausescu's Romania.

At the time it was made, Sergiu Nicolaescu, it's director, was a kind of Romanian Bruckheimer, with some of the most successful action movies of those years. Of course, it must be said that almost 100% of the movies we could see in theaters in 1986 were from Romania, Russia, China or some other communist country.

The plot can be resumed as it follows: After 23 August 1944, the Romanian Army joined the Alied Forces in their fight against Hitler's troops. Horia is a young sergeant, with some lack of experience, but lot of enthusiasm, who has to lead the front-line of the Romanian army during the end of the war. Until the surrender of all the German troops, he will have the hardest experience a soldier could achieve.

The movie shows the heroic behavior of some ordinary men, forced by the circumstances to a constant fight for survival. The characters are quite "by the book", the good ones are very good, while the bad ones are worse than Hitler himself, and the love story between our hero and the General's daughter is quite hard to believe, but, anyway, these are just the moments between one battle and another, certainly the best parts of the film.

Lots of explosions and some very nice stunts make this movie a classic one in the Romanian history of action movie making.

At the same time, we can see some of the most important Romanian actors of all times, people like Mircea Albulescu, Ion Besoiu, Colea Rautu, Stefan Iordache, etc...

So, i think that almost every Romanian who was between 10 and 25 years old when the movie was released and enjoys action movies would recommend it.