O Poeta

If people in Poland during WWII are offered asylum by transport to Canada instead of Sweden or Switzerland, you know you're in for trouble. The plot had gigantic holes in it. Manslaughter gets no penalty, People make social visits to soldiers at the front unannounced, a bloody face becomes perfect in the next scene. Nine months pass and there is no change in season, yet the day after a blizzard, there is no snow on the ground.

The leading female character was written either so unrealistically or just as a tramp, it was really unbelievable. Giving examples would be spoilers.

I think Darryl Hannah and Roy Scheider may not have been doing great movies, but even they had to be embarrassed to be in this one. It's a good thing I saw it for free.

I found this movie on DVD at Blockbuster under the above title. I was very disappointed. It was unrealistic and the plot full of holes. The German accents were almost annoying and even hard to understand. The only redeeming quality of this movie was Roy Scheider as the rabbi. At least he seemed believable. Whoever came up with the script should have watched a good Holocaust movie like Schindler's List first before subjecting the public to this mediocre stuff. Darryl Hannah talents were wasted in this film, plus she didn't seem old enough to have a grown (twenty-something) son. Forget about watching The Poet, aka Hearts of War!!!

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 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.

After reading some of the bad feedback from other reviews, I decided to watch it anyway. Unfortunately, they were all spot on. Its rather a shame too, as the it 'looked' quite authentic with some decent effort made towards costume and setting. Even the cinematography was at a decent standard.

However, everything else was pretty bad, terrible even. The main thing that let it down was the bad script which led to some appalling dialogue and acting at times. Some scenes are laughable its that bad. The funniest scene been at 43 minutes when a boom mic appears in shot for about 10 seconds.

I've given it a 3 simply for the mise en scene.