O Combate

Hoped for more, a Band of Brothers type movie perhaps? Sadly no, the script was terrible & dialog was flat, contrived & generally cringe-worthy. The acting was amateurish & forced, no realism in the characters or in the delivery. I could barely watch in the end. The scene with the repeated cuts back to the same dead body was painful to watch. The action scenes were cumbersome & predictable, in fact its hard to imagine a poorer depiction of events. I didn't feel connected to any character portrayed in this movie

Production values were low and it shows, that doesn't mean that low budget should equal low quality cinema, but in this case it only adds to the general malaise.

Not one for my tastes, missed by a mile.

While talking with my friends after seeing this movie I think that the best part of this movie is that they portrayed the regular German soldier as not the regular caricature evil German. Having friends from a German heritage they really apreciated that. Many of those guys that were in the regular forces did not want to fight but feared what would happen to them or their families if they did not. We all really liked that aspect of this movie. It was very moving to see the interchange between the US soldier and the German towards the end. I won't say anything more cause I don't want to give anything in the story away. We really liked it. It wasn't some Hollywood retelling reworking of history.

Most war movies out lately such as "The hurt Locker" leaves veterans with a love it or hate it attitude. One of the main reasons for this is because of the gross inconsistencies that these movies provide. Everyman's War however is not this type of film. From the beginning, you can tell that this was a labor of love. The filmmaker (Thad Smith) actually based this story off of his own fathers accounts of war from his division's experience during the Battle of the Bulge. I can say this film was very historically accurate and right on point in capturing the realities of this war. From the costume design to the weapons used, even the troop characteristics you can tell that (even for a small budget) no expense was spared at recreating this event. Also the feeling and attitudes of those left home to worry about the troops was spot on.

I don't get what the big hype is for. i got this movie out on the strength of all its five awards it got, didn't end up being able to sit through the whole thing. If you speak any German do not watch this, the movie does not cast the average German soldier in an evil light like many other WWII movies, but the accents are like getting your teeth pulled out. Why couldn't they get some decent German actors? the American actors speaking in German are truly awful. The plot is weak in the extreme, and the acting and dialog is disjointed and awkward. This movie would be fine if you are really bored. Apart from that the movie is on a super low budget, so you don't even get good action scenes to make up for the terrible German accents and the sloppy lines.

The Bad: We gotta take points away because many of the actors were just noobs. The German general waving his finger around like he's clever, the two older people reciting Pollyanna lines at the end of the movie.

The Ugly: Not much. Great pains were made to make this film an extremely effective period piece, at the cost of all the memorabilia being in museum quality. I mean seriously, is every 1940 car going to be running around snow country spotless and with new wax? This is a minor point, but it would have been very easy for the filmmaker to address.

The Good: Excellent story, and excellent manner in which it was told. Excellent acting by the principles. Extremely effective combat scenes, which I claim raise the bar on Saving Private Ryan. But most effective of all was the telling of life in the trenches. This movie could easily fit in the miniseries Band of Brothers, and would outshine all those other episodes. The movie portrays the Germans as professional soldiers. Note that this is a true story, and remember that war is 99% boredom and 1% terror. Firefights showed the terror aspect, none of these soldiers was running around (Rambo), nor were they incompetent idiots (The Big Red One). Saving Private Ryan was an allegory on life. No squad actually stormed Omaha Beach, then walked 20 miles behind German lines to successfully stop a Panzergrenadier platoon. Everyman's War is the story of one real soldier, his sufferings, his terror, and his losses. And the fact that this movie is compared to Saving Private Ryan is a real testament to the filmmaker, who should be extremely proud of this movie.